#bastards are actually very complicated as a function in this series

[rise-my-angel]

"Bastards are no different then trueborn children and don't deserve to be looked down on."

Can actually coexist with the following:

"Bastards cannot be legally trueborn, unless by official royal decree of the King himself, and tricking the realm into thinking your children are trueborn when you have never publically declared them as bastards, so they can inherit over their non bastard relatives, is treason."

The fan discussed moral argument about bastards in this universe are not the same as the in universe legal argument. Stop mistaking these two things and realize both discussions can co exist at the same time and both be correct.

[ramrage]

About that " love is a dagger " thing... I thought it pretty much meant love's main function is to hurt people? It is a weapon, but a weapon that can easily hurt its user and sometimes it is not there when you thought it would be.Which would kinda make sense for Loki to say, considering the previous two movies. But the problem with this interpretation is that he falls in love with sylvie very quickly after that. If that is his view on love, falling in love would cause complications that were not explored in the series.

hello! thanks for the message btw!

i actually didn’t consider his past with love (probably because I was looking at it as strictly romantic, which isn’t necessarily right or wrong) but yeah, that does make it make a bit more sense.

and lol yeah, my sweet bastard takes a moment to note how painful and damaging love can be and then just,, falls in love* in record time. good god.

i’m still caught on how half-baked the metaphor is because tho love has hurt him (quite a bit), there’s a lot of extraneous stuff/stuff that doesn’t read (the biggest one for me is wielding it up close and also far away. like, surely one could mental gymnastics that into something reasonable, but you’d have to be like, olympic level) and a whole lot that the metaphor misses, too. like some bits fit but not enough that it makes a good metaphor, which is fine. characters can be dumb and make shitty metaphors, but i’d expect loki (not dumb) to come up with better and if he hadn’t, he (deeply insecure) wouldn’t share it with someone who’s already been uh, very mean to him

* i am general hater in life and don’t believe that you can really fall in love so quickly. like, you can become interested quickly and yknow, engage in a relationship that may develop love, but it’s not like BAM. like, loves a bit deeper than that imo

[reynesofcastamere]

Distorted Supernova

(A/N: For context, this is set about a year or so prior to the previous installments in this series. Also, the readmore is going directly under my notes this time. Just to be safe. Warnings for bad partner/BDSM etiquette, biting, blood, orgasm denial, and some autoerotic asphyxiation. Not Safe For Work. Mando’a translations are marked with [ ]. Unbeta’d.)

Ahsoka’s nails scrabble desperately against the headboard, seeking a better grip while Maul- “Ah!” Sharp pressure on the pulsing bud between her thighs. He’s never been shy about sinking his teeth into every possible inch of her body, or pushing the boundaries of her endurance to the point where pain and pleasure blur. Her moans rise and crest, trailing off into a hiss when he grinds the slippery nub between his incisors. He hasn’t broken the skin, but it’s still just a bit too much.  She’s trembling as he eases up gradually, the long swipes of his tongue soothing one ache and inflaming another. If he could just keep doing that...But no, he’s withdrawing again, licking the traces of her from his lips as he surveys his ‘handiwork’. The long expanse of skin between collarbone and lower thighs bears a liberal scattering of bruises and bites, flush with desire and exertion while her breath comes in ragged gasps. Ahsoka has no idea how long she’s been kept on the edge, completion just out of reach. And the Force...There is no separation here, no sharp divide between Dark and Light. Only energy, freezing and sparking all at once. Ahsoka can feel his hunger as if it is a monster from one of the stories that the younglings used to tell each other, something that could swallow her whole in one gulp. Maul certainly looks the part, white teeth stark against darkly-patterned skin, auric eyes glowing in the dim light. It is in a near-haze that she watches him shift and lower his mouth to hers, her hands coming to rest on his shoulders as if moving through water instead of air. She tastes herself on him while their tongues duel and twine, humming as he growls, her fingers raking down his back. Her hips cant slightly, seeking friction that he quickly denies her, and she tears herself viciously away from their kiss to scowl up at him.  “What kind of game are you playing?” And it is a game. She is in his room, his bed for the first time since this whole...affair started. On top of that, he’s deliberately drawing things out when his usual method is to have her coming hard, fast, and as many times as possible. As if, in some corner of his twisted mind, it is both a punishment for not remaining at his side and a reminder of what he does to her. Which right now consists of smirking and a decidedly-pleased gleam in his eyes. “I had wondered when your much-vaunted patience would finally reach its’ limit.” Maul chuckles, not even having the decency to be startled when she flips them over, glaring intensely. The smug bastard actually purrs when she pins his hands down. Of course he’d enjoy working her into a state of half-maddened arousal and refuse to let her climax until she gives him what he wants. These emotions give him power over her, after all. “I can still leave at any time.” Ahsoka warns sharply. It’s the most effective threat she can utilize against him right now. “You need this more than I do. Now finish what you started.” She gives his wrists a sharp squeeze before letting go, making him watch as she sits back, bracing herself with one hand; the other spreading her core open and slipping two fingers inside. “Or I will.” Groaning through clenched teeth, eyes fluttering shut. Her sex is drenched, sensitive, and aching. So much so that she gets caught up in the sensation of touching herself, of finally getting the relief so desperately sought-after. “You are learning.” Oh Maker, she hadn’t even noticed- His breath against her already-molten cunt was like adding illerium to a bonfire. Then his tongue slips inside and his thumb is giving just the right amount of pressure on her nub to-Ahsoka Tano screams, body twitching and thrashing beyond her means to control it. She careens from one sensation to the next, any small movement within herself seeming to trigger another wave of pleasure-pain-pleasure-more until, after a small eternity, it finally ebbs.  Her eyes open, breath shaking as she carefully withdraws her fingers and re-adjusts her position. This time, she does feel her sometimes-lover move underneath her, until she is once again straddling his hips. Maul looks...approving. As if her actions had brought her another step closer to the Dark, to being ‘his’. Never. He can keep trying to drag her very being into the deepest pits imaginable. Ahsoka will still fight her way out, every time.  The double-beep of her wrist-comm interrupts these thoughts, moving as quickly as she can to retrieve it from the nightstand and kneel on the edge of the bed. “Receiving.”

“This is Dash. See any sharks where you’re fishing?” Asks a female voice with a rounded Mid Rim accent.  “There’s a fin in the water, but it’s far off. Sea’s calm and the skies are clear. How about you?” Ahsoka verifies after performing the mandatory checks. She can’t afford to take her current location or whatever signal-scrambling tech the Shadow Collective might have in place for granted. Not when so much is on the line. “Weather’s fine where I am.” There’s a brief pause, but it’s enough for Maul to insinuate himself behind her. Before she can even think to ask what he’s doing, she’s being dragged backwards into his lap and-He’s filling her in one stroke, cold metal pressing against her rear and the back of her thighs. “There’s a situation on Corellia.” Maul’s right hand is already around her throat, his left arm keeping her arms bent and pinned to her chest. Of all the-! She mutes the comm still in her hands. “Stop.” Ahsoka instructs in a low hiss, suppressing a moan when she feels him start moving. The first penetration usually takes a bit of...adjustment for them both. Right now he barely has to put any strength into his thrusts to reach her deepest point. 

“No.” He snarls in response, cutting off her air for a few moments before relaxing his grip again.. “I have to take this!” “Then I suggest you do so quickly.” “I’m not going to let you-”  “Having signal problems? Please respond.” Oh, kark it all. She has seconds to make a decision and her options are limited. Either 1) she has Dash call back later, and risk the unknown situation getting worse. 2) Fight Maul to a standstill and then continue the call, which will not be easy or quick to accomplish, or. 3) Be extremely unprofessional, let him...take her, and hope that she can get all the pertinent details without the agent on the other end of the line figuring out what is going on. With a shaky exhale, Ahsoka turns off the mute function. “Just a brief patch of interference. What kind of situation?” How. Just. How in the name of the Mortis gods is she getting aroused? He’s only circling his hips right now, barely stirring up her insides, fingers applying enough intermittent pressure on the sides of her neck to slow the flow of blood to her brain. Her body should be rejecting every part of this, but instead her core is trying to pull him in deeper. “The kind that requires an extraction and some smash-and-grab.” Dash replies. “There’s a team assembling on Devaron. How soon can you be there?” Ahsoka has to bite down on her lower lip to silence a moan, running the calculations in her head. “Just under a week in hyperspace. Five days if I can swap for a better ship.” She might even be able to do it without selling a limb. Provided she doesn’t kill Maul after this.  Dash hums as she thinks it over. “Not great, but it’ll have to do. How’s your condition? Heard you got sent to deal with the Broker again.” Oh, Sithspawn. Ahsoka is going to have to speak very carefully if she doesn’t want the agent on the other end of the line to wind up dead. Or worse. Most of the people she works with most closely might not know exactly who ‘the Broker’ is, but they don’t have...a great opinion of Maul. For various and completely justified reasons. One of which is that Fulcrum comes back from their meetings generally looking like someone dragged her through a field of salt crystals on Crait. Bacta patches and the Force can only do so much.  Ahsoka doesn’t know for certain if the Rebellion has figured out the exact level of their...involvement by now. Of course, she could have avoided that particular complication by not sleeping with him in the first place, but it’s too late for that. “I’m-” He cuts off her air temporarily again, biting hard just underneath her jaw. She hisses, feeling the blood well up and be laved away just as quickly. “-fine.” The grip relaxes, though she can feel him starting to pick up the pace. “I need coordinates and details for the mission.” “Sure thing. Just, look, I know we need all the help we can get, but maybe you should take backup next time. Or assign someone else to him for a bit. Can’t outrun Imps if you’ve basically gone five rounds with a Wookiee.” Maul goes deathly still as the Dark Side surges. In a fit of desperation, she angles her head to kiss him, hoping that his need will outweigh any thoughts of murder and/or dismemberment. Ahsoka can only give half her attention to the numbers and facts being listed off, because he is utterly determined to possess her mouth like it’s the only thing keeping him alive right now. Eventually, she manages to pull back. “That’s everything. Any questions?” Dash asks, forcing her fellow intelligence operative to internally review what she’d heard and made certain it was correct. “No. Everything is affirmative. Fulcrum out.” The second she cuts the call, he pulls out, only to flip and turn her onto her back. Maul enters her ruthlessly this time, muffling her cry with his mouth. It’s this desperate clash of tongue and teeth interspersed with broken gasps as her limbs wind around his body, fingers clawing at his shoulderblades. Then suddenly her lips are skimming the side of his neck and biting down as he hammers into a spot that makes her arch in sheer, carnal rapture. He roars like a ravening beast as his blood fills her mouth. fisting his hands in the sheets near her hips. “Ner darasuum cuyan. [My eternal survivour]” He breathes. While she does not understand the words, Maul’s tone borders on...On worship, and his eyes- Climax overwhelms her, sudden and bordering on agony as he follows and they’re howling like Sriluurian dark wolves in the enclosed space... Ahsoka comes back to herself with Maul’s head resting in the valley between her breasts. Gripping some of his posterior horns, she forces him to meet her hard gaze. “Do not. Ever. Do that again.” She holds her grip and her stare long enough to make certain he understands that this is one of the boundaries that he cannot ignore or abuse at a whim. If he crosses the line again, she will leave or make him wish he’d never touched her in the first place. Possibly both. “As you command, Lady Tano.” Maul acquiesces as he pulls out of her, but otherwise continues to stay in the position of being a very odd blanket once she releases him. “I was not aware that your Alliance considers you so weak as to need protection from me.” He remarks in an offhanded fashion, nose scrunching in slight distaste.  She gives a long, exasperated sigh. “It’s not like that.” “Explain.” He counters, head slightly tilted and brow raised. “Very few people know that I’m meeting with you. Or what our actual history is.” This day is now officially bizarre, even by her standards. “They see me going off to bargain with a shady underworld contact and coming back-most of the time- limping or covered in minor injuries.” And this is where the explanation might get tricky. “So the general consensus is either that I’m letting you abuse me because I’m being ordered to...Or that you’re strong enough that I can’t stop it from happening.” Those who do know his identity think he’s been trying to murder her and failing at it for one reason or another, but that’s hardly an important detail. “Ridiculous. You would not have lived this long if these scratches-” His left thumb idly traces a mark on her ribcage.”-were enough to incapacitate you.” Which, coming from him, is...Almost sweet? In any case, she doesn’t have the time to ponder his mood. Ahsoka steals a brief kiss from him and carefully sits up. “Careful, that was almost an actual compliment. Think you can lend me a ride?” She teases, extracting herself out from under him to start the process of cleaning up and getting dressed. “I was mistaken. Clearly you are a terrified, delicate waif who wilts at the mere thought of my displeasure.” Maul deadpans, getting up to retrieve a disposable datapad and typing something into it, handing it to her before beginning to set himself to rights. “Give that to Kast. She should be in the hangar at this time.”  “Thank you.” They both finish up quickly, but before she can leave, he cups her jaw in one hand and presses their foreheads together. His eyes are hooded, but no less intense for it. “Oya, cuyan. Meh gar kyrayc, shuk bah ni. [Stay alive, survivour. You’re no use to me dead] ”  “You know I don’t speak Mando’a.” “Then I shall keep my advantage until you learn, atin jetii [stubborn Jedi] .” He’s actually smiling for once as his hand drops and he lets her pass out of his private domain. Back into the light, where her duties wait.   (A/N: Good GRIEF this thing is a monster. X_X  Apologies for any butchering of Mando’a. Also, for context, ‘Oya’ is one of those words with multiple meanings, including ‘Let’s hunt!’, but is generally used as a cheer or encouragement. I simply went with the meaning that worked best for that particular line. And...ok, I probably DON’T need to clarify this, but I feel like I should? Since they’re using the Force to share some level of emotional and physical sensation, it doesn’t matter whether Maul has his original equipment, an attachable toy, or a prosthesis. So long as Ahsoka climaxes, he does too. Or at least, that’s how it works out in my writing. XD Anyway, hope you all enjoyed and cheers to everyone.)

[portfolio-ni-rizza]

Netflix’s Death Note: [Personal] Review

Director Adam Wingard's Death Note is basically a Final Destination bootleg with the manga's name. It's flat, unnecessarily gory, and incoherent. Its promising moments are completely swept under the rug of its overall disjointed narrative and out-of-character acting.

I love Death Note. It's one of my all-time favorite series. I even have merch from my weaaboo days (haha). But I've also never been a fan of manga adaptations–not even anime (to an extent; I'm looking at you, Full Metal Alchemist and Shugo Chara season 3), and especially not of Western movies. Hollywood has YET to produce a decent manga adaptation, and this one is right up there with M. Night's The Last Airbender.

I'm not sure how these directors do their research, but by and large their end products wind up looking like their "research" is pretty much just looking up the plot on Wikipedia and making what they will of that. Netflix's DN is the absolute barebones of the wonderful masterpiece that is Ohba and Obata's Death Note. It's even more disappointing if you think about the fact that Death Note's "absolute barebones" is still a good material to work with, and we STILL end up with this bastardization.

First of all, I, at least, have no problem with the setting. To begin with, Netflix did say this was an Americanized version of the original. It makes sense that they'd change the names, considering this is set in Seattle. I did appreciate that 'Mia Sutton' is not too far from 'Misa Amane' as far as the composite letter are concerned lol. My biggest problem was the characters themselves, but I'll focus on 2 to keep this from being indecently long.

Light Turner is not supposed to be Timmy Turner's older, emo brother and is an average kid whom no one understands and happens to be good at Math and doing other people's homework. The core of Light's character is his PERFECTION. He is so far above average that he's completely detached from the rest of the world. That god complex was the entire reason he even took and managed to assume a 'god' character. It's literally the core of Death Note. Light is supposed to be the perfect son, perfect student, perfect citizen. Everyone loves him and looks up to him. And HE knows that. People don't need to tell him; he knows for himself he is BETTER than others. That's how Kira came to be in the first place.

Netflix's Light Turner is a wimpy loser with absolutely no depth as a character. He is completely one dimensional. He responds to dark and violent situations with darkness and violence. He is bullied so he fights back. His mother is murdered so he kills the murderer. It's a completely overused narrative that puts the essence of Light Yagami, antihero extraordinaire, straight into the chopping block.

From the get-go, his character is completely wrong. He is introduced as a nerdy kid who earns lunch money by doing other kids' homework. He has zero charisma. He's at the bottom of the food chain. He has absolutely nothing of what it takes to become the god that is Kira. The way that Light Turner was written would never have let him become anything larger than life; it just made him a vindictive bully who happened to be able to kill.

(A very dangerous combination–but for all the wrong reasons.)

Which just obliterates the central theme of Death Note altogether, and throws out the window the very foundation of what made the original work.

Second, this film is unnecessarily gory. Sure, a certain degree of violence is expected when it comes to murder, but Wingard just made this entire movie a B-rated slasher film with his slow-motion death scenes–something he just PACKS the whole movie with and spotlights on like it's the most important aspect of the story when it's totally secondary (if not completely an afterthought) in the original.

It's not even realistic. Light sees a BULLY (not a criminal; just a run-of-the-mill playground bully) antagonizing a schoolmate, he's handed a murder weapon for a TEST RUN, and he immediately, without a shadow of a doubt, writes 'decapitation' as the method of death? He chooses something that is exceedingly difficult, unnatural, and very, very specific for the first time he's trying to kill someone? He doesn't even UNDERSTAND what's going on; he's just had a massive Poltergeist experience. How was it possible for him to suddenly have enough presence of mind to write down an oddly specific method of death for someone who isn't even evil, just mean? That doesn't bode very well for Light as a person, let alone someone who's about to play god.

Throughout the movie, Light visibly struggles with his actions. He has no certainty. He kills with the Death Note but he lacks the inherent motivation for it; he only does it because he has to. Nothing about the characterization of Light Turner remotely suggested that he has what it takes to rule the world, as what he is essentially doing when he dictates who lives or dies (or tells your story lol). But then–all of a sudden, 5 minutes to the end of the movie and he explains this elaborate scheme where he undoes Mia killing him and transfers the ownership of the notebook back to him and basically just manipulated space and time so suit his needs.

That is a completely Light YAGAMI thing to do (and something he HAS actually done numerous times in the original). Nothing about Light TURNER's character and actions suggested he was capable of that. How convenient that 2 minutes before the police gets to him, he suddenly taps into his inner high-functioning psychopath and concocts an über-complicated plan to not die but kill 3 people and destroy one theme park along the way.

Where did that inner 'HIGH FUNCTIONING' part come from? Nearly two hours to have shown that Light's brilliant mind goes beyond solving Calculus problems and thinking up oddly particular methods of dying, and you choose the last five minutes to cram that in.

How very high school.

But enough about Light. Now we go to another important character–L. Considering that these 2 are the only ones they retain from the original (excepting Ryuk, but that's another point). L is one of the most brilliant minds in the world, but instead the movie showed him as nothing more than a weirdo that throws tantrums and only needs the FLIMSIEST of proofs to say he "knows" and he's "right". 

The original L does operate entirely on the gut feeling that Light is Kira, but he sets out to prove that. To him, nothing is ever damning enough and he won't settle for anything less than seeing Light actually murder someone right before L's very eyes. Movie L suddenly "just knows". Nothing about his actions suggests that he has the means to prove that Light is Kira; if anything, he's trying to make it so that things DO go with his conclusion, whether or not it's actually true. The real L is nothing like that. He backed down when his proofs didn't go with his conclusions. L believes in justice, first and foremost. He's almost childlike in his black-and-white convictions (I have a screenshot of this panel, so my receipts are in place). This L just doesn't capture that innocence. 

By itself, the movie isn't THAT bad. It only becomes a terrible crapfest when you have the original to compare it with. Netflix's Death Note can stand alone as a slasher/horror/thriller film to Netflix and chill with if you are holding it to itself, but never make the mistake of reading/watching the original brilliance that is Ohba and Obata's Death Note first.

I do have a real concern with the keeping of the name "Kira". Kira is just the Japanese pronunciation of "killer". Japanese people literally were calling Light, "Killer". Why did Wingard keep the Jap pronunciation? What purpose did it serve other than that 5-second line where L says it was to mislead investigation to thinking Light was Japanese? Why is there even a need for that? Was that supposed to be a nod to the Japanese root of Death Note? It may have been a pure intention on the director's part, though, but it was unnecessary, if not even reeking of whitewashing–but I'd digress and hope for the best.

[stillbelievinginfireflies]

Some thoughts on Luther, the apocalypse, and the situation at large

Alright, so. Getting the sense that I’m one of maybe like five people in the fandom that doesn’t actually hate Luther Hargreeves, so I’m gonna do some analysis here and see if I can change any opinions.

So, first things first: Luther is not perfect. Not by any stretch. This post is not trying to claim he is, or that he’s some ‘misunderstood angel baby uwu’. Locking Vanya up was absolutely awful, and his obsession with making decisions for everyone else and acting like a martyr does him no favours. But! He is by no means the only person responsible for everything that happens in this series.

The post is gonna be under the cut, because boy oh boy it’s a long one.

Argument #1: Luther locked up Vanya, causing her to become the White Violin and destroy the world.

Yep. He locked her up. However, it’s not like he was the only person capable of getting her out. Allison, Ben, Diego, and Klaus all were present when this happened and knew that Vanya was trapped. Ben couldn’t do anything. Allison tried to pass by Luther and he held her back and refused to let her do anything until eventually she passed out. Then they all left Vanya to veg out in a soundproof chamber and lose her mind. While Luther is still obviously the one who locked her up, why did nobody else think to...idk...unlock her? He was sitting with Allison in her room right after this incident and obsessing over her. They could have just as easily climbed into the elevator and gone back downstairs to free Vanya and show that Allison wasn’t the only one in her corner. Hell, Diego is pretty much eternally ready to fight Luther throughout the series and while that doesn’t in any way make what happened his fault, it is worth noting that while Luther is the one who locked her up, the others were complicit in allowing her to stay locked up.

Argument #2: Luther is self-absorbed and constantly invalidates the trauma of the others in favour of his own trauma about being sent to the moon.

I’ve only watched the show once, so I may be wrong in this. But most of the instances that come to mind of Luther bringing up the moon are either when it seemed like a natural place in the conversation to do so (like the window conversation when he was sitting and talking with Allison about what it was like up there) or towards the end of the series when he’s trying to solve the apocalypse mystery and suggests that it might have something to do with his research on the moon and how finding that will help. He hated the moon, and he hated that he wound up becoming a half-gorilla-skin-graft situation to survive. But he literally hid the body issue until it straight up came out when Hazel and Cha-Cha attacked the house, and then while he was upset about the others knowing, he didn’t want to talk about it. As far as I recall (and again, might be wrong here) he didn’t talk about it until he was egged into it and got into an argument about how the others shouldn’t have left him alone. Which, okay. Admittedly, poor argument to make, given that the others left for a damn good reason and Luther should have left too. All the same, it’s not like he’s sitting there rubbing it in everyone’s face about ‘why are you upset? Dad sent me to the moon! Locking you in the mausoleum/soundproof rooms is nothing!’ He barely even seems to regard it as traumatic for a while, because he thinks there was a point.

Now, obviously everybody in that house went through hell as a kid, but none of them want to talk about that. This is not a family that is open with emotions, and Luther especially is removed from all of them with the arguable exception of Allison. Would it really have done anything if he had responded to the others by trying to have a sit down about their trauma instead of moving on with their life and bringing the conversation back to the moon (which again, at the time he thought might be a useful lead) so they could solve this mystery, stop the apocalypse, and never have to see each other or the House Of Horrors again?

Argument #3: Luther is self-absorbed and keeps forcing the idea that he is a leader and making decisions for others.

Yep. He does make decisions for others without their input. He often makes really stupid decisions. So does literally everybody else in the Academy. Five tries to solve the apocalypse by running off and handling shit on his own constantly and they’re halfway through the series before he thinks to involve anyone else in addressing the issue and solving it, much less mentioning the fact that the coming apocalypse is not a distant event, it’s happening in a week. Diego sees Grace sewing through her hand and turns her off without further discussion with the family. Allison’s entire power revolves around making decisions for and manipulating people into doing what she wants (ie, the Vanya incident which - again, I understand that she was four and didn’t know better and hell, maybe she forgot about it until Vanya brought it up, but aside from that, while she is trying to get better about it by not using her power anymore and that’s wonderful character development and I am by no means trying to undermine that, the point remains that she has the same capacity for manipulation and forceful decision making as any of the others.) About the only people who don’t and seemingly never have routinely taken the decisions of others away from them because ‘they know better’ are Ben (who is dead), Vanya (who thinks she’s ordinary until the end of the series), and Klaus (who nobody would listen to anyway because they view him as a junkie and he’s rarely in a state of mind to even make his own decisions). Even Pogo gets in on this by keeping all of Reginald’s secrets instead of being forthright and saying anything! Everybody in the Academy is really bad at decision making and constantly tries to tell the others how much they can or can’t handle.

Argument #4: Luther is self-absorbed and idolises their father too much to be a functional human being/is too busy pouting about their dad at the end of the series to be useful.

Luther Hargreeves is every bit as traumatised as each and every one of his siblings. He shows it very differently, though. Let’s look at it this way: Luther believed in their father until the day the old man died. He was with their father well past the others having left, leading to the incident where he almost died because he was trying to solo a mission that was impossible to solo. The others had years upon years upon years (in at least Five’s case, literal decades) to distance themselves from the trauma of their life and figure out a way to work through it and accept how awful their father was. Vanya wrote a book to get through it. Allison left it behind and didn’t look back. Klaus got into drugs. Diego became a vigilante. They all saw this mess and they left it, but we don’t know what that looked like in the moment, what even finally prompted them to officially give up. I’ve seen some hints that it was Ben’s death, which makes sense for some of it, but on the other hand whether it was Ben’s death that inspired the exodus or not, the fact remains that we don’t know what the other Academy members were like when they first left. Maybe Allison stopped talking to anyone for a while. Maybe Klaus just didn’t come home some time and three months later someone tried to bring him home and Klaus told them to fuck off. We don’t know.

When we see the Academy at the start of the series, it’s the first time any of them have seen each other in ages, and they are all still very screwed up and struggling to recover from their life and are incredibly dysfunctional as humans in general, never mind the undoubtedly complicated feelings they must have been going through about the entire situation of their Dad being dead now. For Luther, he actively still cared about their Dad and hadn’t left. He didn’t have that curtain of time to take the edge off of the loss, and then a week later he found out that it was all for nothing and Reginald Hargreeves was every bit the bastard his siblings had always claimed he was.

This puts Luther at a very, very different point in his progression of grief than the others are at. They’ve had time to adjust to the idea of their father being awful, but for Luther it is a fresh revelation that he absolutely cannot ignore anymore, and unlike the others, he doesn’t even have the option to bring it up to their father and get any kind of answers, because Reginald Hargreeves is dead. His claims that he wasn’t going to lead anymore, his running off to the rave to get high and get distracted, those are all probably similar things that the others went through when they hit that eureka moment about how much of a prick Reginald Hargreeves was. He’s grieving a lot of things, and he has an excuse to not be okay with everything.

Argument #5: Well, that’s Luther’s fault! He was a grown-up when he got sent to the moon. If the others left, so could he!

Here’s the thing: the kind of abuse the Hargreeves children went through has some serious impacts on a kid’s psychology. Speaking from research and experience here, when you have a parent that tells you you’re special, that you’re Number One, that you’re Important, you want to believe them. When it’s a parent like Reggie who shows no emotions and is unfailingly awful to his kids ‘for the greater good’, that only increases. Put yourself in Luther’s shoes for a moment here. His siblings, one by one, had left. He’s the only one his father still has. He’s Number One. He’s been told they’re saving the world. If he doesn’t stay and bear the load, what happens then? Who saves the world if all the heroes have left? He’s supposed to be the leader, and if the ones he’s supposed to be leading have left, well. That just means more effort is needed out of him.

When you want to believe that somebody has your best interest in mind, that they love you, you will make excuses for them. Everybody constantly will tell you that your parents love you and want what’s best for you, and if you truly believe that, you will make excuses for their behaviour, especially in situations like this. That’s why this kind of abuse is so awful: it puts the blame on the victim. Luther truly believed that there was a purpose to everything Reginald did, that making him Number One and pushing them to their limits had a reason, because your parents are supposed to be the ones you can trust and when they tell you something is for your own good as a kid, you adjust your worldview to reflect that perspective. It is hard as hell to break free from that.

The others managed to get out. They managed to see Reginald for what he was, and they left because they knew it wasn’t getting better. Luther couldn’t see that until the very end of the series, and he went down believing that everything their father did was done with the best of intentions because That’s What Leaders Do. They aren’t nice, they make the hard decisions nobody else wants to make. And that’s what Luther took away from everything: that he had to make the hard decisions to keep his family safe.

Argument #6: That doesn’t excuse him locking up Vanya!

No, it doesn’t. Locking up Vanya was a horrible choice. It was cruel, and terrible,  and exactly the sort of thing Reginald would have done. It was also not done to be vindictive or vengeful. It was done because he thought that was what he needed to do to keep the rest of his family safe. Keep in mind, when Luther sees Vanya for the first time, he has just found out she almost killed Allison losing control of her powers. When he chokes her out and locks her up, he is apologising the whole time because he genuinely is sorry. This is not him being vengeful, this is him making hard decisions because he thinks that’s what Number Ones are supposed to do. It is not a good decision, but it’s the only one that comes to mind for him in order to keep people safe when he already has a LOT on his mind (such as: Vanya having powers, Allison almost dying, the rave, the revelation that Reginald was in fact every bit the douchecanoe his siblings always said he was... Not exactly conducive for clear thinking, no?)

Argument #7: But he didn’t let her out when the others gave him other ideas either!

No, he didn’t. No, that wasn’t okay. Yes, that was awful. But again, he didn’t do it because he thought Vanya needed to sit where she was and think about what she’d done. He did it because he thought that this was safer. The others were suggesting they let Vanya out, but nobody made any suggestions on how to keep them all safe afterwards. At the time, Allison could barely move and had almost died. They were all emotionally screwed up. From his perspective, they were all either missing or at low power, and Vanya was freaking out in the cage - you know, kinda like how she was freaking out when she almost killed Allison? That said, I am ABSOLUTELY not blaming Vanya. I would freak the fuck out if I was locked in a cage too, especially if it was done by my brother who I thought I could trust and wanted to believe in. But while this was a fucking stupid and awful and horrible decision to make, I would like to return to my former point: if nobody else agreed with it, why was Allison the only one who even tried to do anything about Vanya being locked up?

Argument #8: But Luther caused the apocalpyse! He made Vanya the White Violin!

No. Like Five said, Vanya is the bomb. Leonard was the fuse. But there were a whole lot of other things that lit the match. If Luther had been the only person Vanya was mad at and the only one responsible for her situation, she would have only killed him. Instead, she wrecked the entire Academy and went for everyone outside of Allison. Let’s look at this in review:

- Allison Rumoured Vanya into thinking she was powerless as a kid. Granted, she has apologised for this and has been trying to be a better sister to Vanya. Hence, Vanya doesn’t intentionally attack her.

- Luther locked up Vanya and told her she was too dangerous to be let out. The only person Vanya actively saw trying to free her was Allison. Nobody else came back.

- Pogo lied to every one of the kids for Reginald Hargreeves. He kept his secrets, he perpetuated his lies. He knew about Vanya’s powers, and Allison’s role in hiding them, and he kept it to himself even when he knew better and didn’t reveal anything until it seemed like ‘a good time’, despite KNOWING how deeply the siblings trusted him over their father.

- Klaus threw away the contents of the box to go pawn it all, meaning that Leonard got hold of the book he used to train Vanya and screw her over.

- Leonard found Vanya, manipulated her, lied to her, and used her to enact his revenge fantasy against the Umbrella Academy and Reginald Hargreeves and all those other ‘Extraordinary People’ who made him feel like he was nothing, leading to Vanya feeling used and betrayed by the first person she has ever thought actually loved her for being herself, ordinary and all.

- Diego missed no opportunity to tell Vanya how little he valued her opinion or her presence, particularly in the first half of the season. At every given chance, he made sure to make jabs about her making a sequel, about how she didn’t get a vote until he decided her vote was useful. He loves her, yes, but he did not ever make her feel any more welcomed than the others did, and he certainly didn’t include her in the rest of their reindeer games as kids, either.

- Five, as stated, knew the apocalypse was coming. Rather than warning his siblings and trying to get them to come together to stop things, he spent the first several days trying to handle everything on his own, leaving a trail of corpses and problems in his wake while he tried to discover the owner of the eye and killed the assassins after him and then got shitfaced drunk when he hit a dead end and didn’t tell anyone what he saw until three days before the fact because he kept trying to handle it on his own and nobody else would understand.

Most importantly, above all others, there is Reginald.

Reginald Hargreeves was an absolute bastard. He abused his kids physically and emotionally. He neglected every one of them. He set them to fight each other, he set them up to go into situations which they were unprepared for, he set them up for ruin because ‘it was for the greater good’ and was never emotionally available to coax them through anything. He screwed over every single one of the kids, he was the mastermind behind Vanya being lied to and put on her medications and having her powers suppressed, he intentionally isolated her and made her feel worthless, he let nobody tell his secrets, and he was never straightforward or understanding or even marginally remorseful about any one thing he ever did in his life. He took seven kids and threw them in a house together and raised them to be extraordinary by his standards at the cost of their sanity and their emotional stability. He told them to be a team, and he made them each other’s enemies. That’s why the series starts with almost none of them being able to talk to each other, no connections between them, and all the other nuances of them being dead, addicted, disgraced, imprisoned, or otherwise isolated. These traumatised kids all grew up to be traumatised adults, and he is the reason.

The only person who is completely innocent of blame in terms of the apocalypse is Ben, because he was too dead to do anything about it. Even then, he did all he could - saving Diego, trying to get Klaus sobered up, fighting the guys at the theatre - but in the end, all of the siblings were too fucked up to work together and be an effective team. They all had a hand in what happened.

Now Luther is not a perfect person. He makes some stupid decisions. He makes some absolutely idiotic, cruel, inexcusable choices. But he is not an irredeemable person. He is in a different stage of his life and grieving journey than the others, and he is still reeling from trying to figure out who he is outside of the identity he was assigned as Number One. That doesn’t excuse his actions, but I’d say it makes them make a lot more sense. The apocalypse happened because Reginald Hargreeves screwed up seven superpowered kids and called it child-rearing, and now those kids are trying to fix the problem by going back to the start and rewriting the story. It didn’t happen just because Luther locked up Vanya and was grieving their dad.

[raendown]

I finally got around to taking part in @dahtwitchi‘s Dick Pic Project! And in time to be allowed my repost of her delicious artwork! The image I am posting is ever so slightly doctored, just cropped a little, but with permission from Twitchi. 

Pairing: MadaraTobirama Word count: 4121 Rated: M Summary: Madara isn't sure what he thinks about being given a third chance at life. He's glad that he has his brother and Hashirama with him, although he's pretty sure he could live without Tobirama being there as well. What really makes things things interesting is all this new technology. He particularly enjoys his new 'cellphone'.

Follow the link or read it under the cut!

Rapture On The Lonely Shore

As much as Madara appreciated being given another chance at life, there were still moments when he wondered if this was all just a little too much trouble. He had lived his life – two of them in fact! In that time he had committed his crimes, died for them twice, and seen about as much of the world as he’d thought he would ever want to. Getting dragged back in to the land of the living for a third go around wasn’t really in his plans.

Having both of the Senju brothers tag along for the ride could be nothing but karma trying to kick him in the ass and have a good laugh at him while doing it. Some days not even the fact that Izuna had also clawed his way back to life was worth the aggravation of it all.

Certainly on the surface everything was fine and dandy. The citizens of Konoha had at last reached a point where they were content to ignore him so long as he remained docile and afforded them the same discourtesy. Hashirama had fallen so easily in to the patterns of friendship they enjoyed during the few shorts months he had been able to peacefully exist within the village they built together. Spending his days with Izuna as he had always wanted to was a joy he’d long stopped believing could ever be possible.

The problem, as always, was Tobirama. To an outsider’s point of view it would appear that Tobirama had given up all animosity towards the Uchiha brothers he once carried so much hate for. And that would almost be considered correct, Madara had to admit. After finding themselves alive in a time period far passed their own, all of them had found it much easier to lay down their anger and simply enjoy the time they had been gifted, allowing the sins of the past to stay there and looking forward to the future with lighter hearts. Tobirama spent most of his time these days devoting his mind to the science he’d always loved.

He spent the rest of his time bothering Madara.

It wasn’t the same sort of hatred which had existed between them before when Izuna lay buried beneath six feet of earth and neither Tobirama nor Madara could look at each other without seeing the blood of their lost kin. Back then they had both done everything in their power to get in each other’s way, to antagonize and impede and irritate in every way they could just for the pleasure of knowing they had ruined even just a moment of the other’s day.

Now Madara wasn’t sure what he would call it. Without the weight of the world on his shoulders Tobirama seemed to have discovered a new side of himself that very much enjoyed poking fun at other people. He found a great deal of amusement in pulling small pranks and Madara, unfortunately, was his new favorite victim. Even more confusing was that none of it seemed to truly be mean-spirited. Tobirama switched out his reading glasses and put dye in his shampoo bottle, he laughed at the results until he was rubbing his sides with glee and then – amazingly – he would return Madara his things or provide him with the cure for whatever chaos he had caused. Then he returned to his lab until the urge for this new brand of fun rose again.

Several years had already gone by since the Fourth Shinobi War and all of them were fairly well entrenched in their patterns. Izuna in particular still struggled to remember the availability of new technologies like electric stoves and lightbulbs. On his part, Madara had been enamored with the concept of a cellphone since he was first handed one and the concept explained to him. That changed when Tobirama got a cellphone of his own.

Now here he was eyeing the small bar across the lock screen which indicated that he had a new message from “That White Bastard”. Madara sighed, drumming the nails of his other hands against his thigh as he wondered if it was worth his time to open the message. Last time he gave in to curiosity he’d gotten a series of eight picture messages of the same stupid leaf from different angles. Just a dumb waste of his time, something harmless that did nothing more than irritate him yet caused no real offense, that was the basis of all their interactions now. Madara had stopped checking Tobirama’s messages since then and started deleting them on sight but today a pattern had been broken.

Today he had received one picture message followed by no less than fifteen text messages in rapid succession. The constant ding of his phone was both annoying and slightly alarming, holding his attention if only for the way the messages just kept coming all at once. That wasn’t like Tobirama. It was more like Tobirama to wait and send each message in short intervals for maximum irritation value.

With a roll of his eyes and a heavy sigh, Madara unlocked his phone and fumbled around for the messages app. He wouldn’t be able to think about anything else until he solved this mini mystery so he might as well get it over with sooner rather than later. As soon as he opened it, however, he narrowed his eyes in confusion, anxious worry rising up in his throat as he read through the immediately visible messages.

No Seriously Do not I mean it, don’t scroll up If I send you enough messages it won’t be visible Just don’t scroll up I mean it Uchiha Don’t fucking do it If you want to keep your sanity DO NOT SCROLL UP

Madara caught his bottom lip between his teeth and nibbled viciously with indecision. He’d never seen Tobirama come even close to panic before but these messages, the speed with which they had all dropped in one after the other, it felt a lot like panic to him. The last message in particular caught his attention. He wasn’t sure if the wording was meant as a genuine warning or as a some kind of threat but all it had really accomplished was to make him incredibly curious. What could that idiot Senju have possibly sent him that would be followed all of this?

It took exactly half a minute for Madara to cave to his own curiosity. Whatever had been sent to him, it was obvious the Senju didn’t want him to see it. He might be holding amazing blackmail material in the palm of his hand; he would be stupid not to investigate that. Scrolling upwards only increased his confusion at first as it became more and more clear that Tobirama seemed to have sent him something by accident, something he truly did not wish for Madara to see, true panic clear in the messages where he seemed to realize he’d made some sort of mistake.

DON’T LOOK AT IT I DID NOT MEAN TO SEND THIS IMAGE Believe me when I say I meant to send something else This was an accident Do not scroll up Do not look at that image No Seriously

And then Madara found the image itself.

If he had an ounce less self-control he would have thrown his cellphone across the room on mere reflex, an instinctive reaction to the immediate influx of conflicting emotions. Of all the possible things Tobirama might have sent him, even accidentally, an image of the other man in the nude had not even crossed Madara’s mind.

Alright, so Tobirama wasn’t completely nude in the photo, although he might as well have been. His torso was bare and the pants he was wearing were opened to allow his impressive erection to rise out and stand perfectly centered in the frame. Madara couldn’t decide if he wanted to stare at the most delicious cock he’d ever set his poor shamed eyes upon or if he wanted to trace the shape of the tattoo he’d never known about. Tobirama’s pale white skin made a perfect backdrop for the red ink of a tiger to claw its way up and around his shoulder, the stripes of the beast’s arm running down Tobirama’s. The man’s other arm was pulled up behind his head to draw Madara’s eye to the third surprise: apparently Tobirama had seen fit to pierce one of his nipples.

Madara swallowed thickly, both hands clutching his phone so hard the metal casing gave a protesting creak. The part of his brain that had been raised in a war with the Senju was a little disgusted with himself for even entertaining the ideas this image was clearly meant to inspire. Perhaps it wasn’t meant to inspire those ideas in him but the other part of himself, the one that had put the war behind him and was slowly learning to trust again, was already rerouting blood to some very interested parts of his body. A few years ago he might have scowled at this same image with nothing but revulsion. Now he sank deeper in to his couch cushions and palmed the front of his trousers.

Two could play at this game, he thought with a grin. It had taken hours to teach him how to use the camera function on this overly complicated device but it was time he appreciated as well-spent now, reluctantly backing away from the messaging app so he could open up the camera and fiddle until he remembered how to turn it around to face himself. Then he unfastened his pants and pushed them down.

He wasn’t nearly as naked as Tobirama, he noticed. Staring back at the image of himself made him wonder if he should set the scene a little. Maybe take off his shirt? Pose? What expression should he make? Madara shifted and watched his cock bob from side to side, leering at the reflection his own hardness when an idea occurred to him.

It took several tries to get a picture he liked that actually stayed in focus, then several more tries to figure out how to send it back to Tobirama. If he said so himself it was quite an attractive image with him hunkered down in a similar lounging pose as the other man with one of his hands stroking himself and his eyes closed in bliss.

When his phone began to ring he nearly jumped out of his skin. The screen told him that Tobirama was calling him and Madara stared at it for a few seconds, terrified enough that his erection wilted a little. He didn’t think Tobirama would call him. He’d just…actually he had no idea what he’d meant with this stupid idea. Tit for tat? Payback? Mutual teasing with naked bodies? But if he didn’t answer then he ran the risk of Tobirama just popping in with that infernal jutsu of his so Madara accepted the call with one shaking thumb, his other hand still wrapped protectively around his own cock.

“Hello…” he mumbled, unsure of what the protocol was for talking to someone he’d just sent a racy picture of himself to.

“I thought I told you not to look at it.” Tobirama’s voice sounded oddly breathless in his ear. Madara swallowed thickly as his mind supplied him with several possible reasons why. His thumb absently rubbed small circles around the smooth head of his cock, making him shiver.

“You made me curious,” he admitted.

A few beats of silence followed before Tobirama spoke in a husky rasp, “I think I made you hard.”

“Perhaps. And you?” This was all stupid, so stupid, a bad idea shaped from adrenaline and the shock of sudden arousal. The percentage chance of this all blowing up in his face was astronomically high and yet he couldn’t stop his thumb from continuing to trace light circles, closing his eyes and dropping his head back to strain his ears for the sound of Tobirama’s voice. Had the man always had such an attractive voice or had Madara just not been listening properly?

“Madara…what are you doing right now?”

There were a hundred possible answers he could have given, a million different lies he could have told to stop this situation before it got too far out of hand, but the only animosity left between them was harmless pranks because they made Tobirama laugh and Madara had just enough courage to make a leap of faith. He took a chance in a way he never would have done in the world they lived in before.

“Right now? I’m touching myself while I think about that picture you sent me.”

“Oh.” Tobirama cleared his throat but it didn’t erase the fact that they both heard his voice crack. “R-right now. You’re–? Okay.”

“Do you know what would help?” Madara grinned listening to Tobirama’s breathing speed up.

“What?”

“If I could listen to you touching yourself at the same time.”

He never would have guessed how satisfying it would be to hear the hitch in Tobirama’s breath and the stuttering inhale that followed his statement. Madara shifted his grasp on the phone and squirmed as his thumb moved a little faster. Every fiber of his being wanted to move the entire hand, his blood boiling with anticipation at just the thought of it, but he held off for now. How much more satisfying would it be to have Tobirama join him? To listen to each other fall to pieces even though they were half a village apart.

Very likely he would have trouble looking Tobirama in the eye the next time they saw each other but that was a problem to be considered later. He could worry about his own recklessness and the possible fallouts of this after what promised to be a very satisfying orgasm.

“So, what, you would just…if I…?”

“You’re already touching yourself aren’t you?” Madara cut in smugly.

“Are you?”

“Yeah,” he breathed. “Tell me how you’re touching yourself Tobirama.”

The voice in his ear stumbled through a few syllables, clearly having difficulty doing both tasks at once, but finally he managed to say, “Slowly. I like to do it slowly. With light touches at first.”

Madara kept his eyes closed and groaned freely as his hand began to move at last, root to tip, consciously mimicking the things that were being described to him and trying to imagine it was Tobirama’s pale hand working him. Unsurprisingly, it was pretty easy to imagine. He’d never been more thankful for the perfect recall his eyes granted him.

“Never knew you had any other tattoos. If you were here I’d be tracing it with my tongue.” Madara bucked helplessly in to his fist when Tobirama groaned in his ear. He waited to hear something back, silence stretching until he realized the other man either had no idea what to say or was still too embarrassed to say it. Feeling reckless, he continued to speak his mind without thought for the consequences. “And that piercing. You’re just full of surprises, aren’t you? I’d love to get my teeth around that.”

“It was a dare,” Tobirama murmured finally, making him chuckle.

“Dare you to stroke yourself a little faster,” he said darkly. The other man let out a keening sound that sparked down the length of his spine like a jolt of electricity.

When the breathing in his ear started coming in fits and starts Madara swallowed thickly and moved his own hand faster as well, thrilled in a way he couldn’t describe to know that Tobirama had done so at his behest. His other hand absently pressed the phone so hard to the side of his head he feared the screen might crack, unwilling to miss even the slightest sound.

“You’re close, aren’t you?” he asked, grinding the words out between his clenched teeth.

“Fuck – yes – fuck…” Tobirama paused and then he whispered, “I want…to hear youcome.”

Madara groaned again instead of answering. If he had a second hand free he would have reached down between his legs to tease his entrance, maybe spit on his fingers and pressed in with just the tip of one, but to do that he would have to drop the phone. The last thing he was willing to do at that moment was give up the sound of Tobirama right at the edge, so close to glory. So instead he squeezed his eyes closed tighter and constructed the image of the other man on his knees taking Madara in to his mouth, the heat and the suction and the way his red eyes would be narrow and unfocused.

It was just enough. With a violent shudder he came, back arching and teeth grinding, a wordless growl ripping up his throat and immediately echoed from the other end of the call. Madara felt his jaw drop open in a gasp when he realized that Tobirama was coming too, reaching his completion from listening to Madara’s own.  

When the pleasure bordered on pain he let his hand come to rest and slumped backwards against the couch cushions to listen to Tobirama’s panting. His mind was blissfully empty of any thoughts other than how incredibly satisfying that had been, more satisfying than taking care of things himself usually felt. It took several minutes for him to realize that he and Tobirama were sitting in silence and listening to the each other recover in the aftermath. This was a man who, until a half hour ago, he would never thought himself to have any attachment to, had never even considered him as an option. Their shared past had blinded him to any possible attraction before now.

Now he wasn’t sure he would be able to look the man in the eye without wondering what he would taste like in the throes of ecstasy. Madara snapped both eyes open and stared at the ceiling with muted horror as he slowly realized what he’d just done and who he had done it with.

It seemed Tobirama’s mind was following the same paths.

“May I point out,” he heard the man rumble, “that it truly was an accident, me sending you that image.”  

“Hmm. You say that and yet I cannot think of any other reason for you to possess something…like…that…” Madara’s voice trailed off as a sudden thought washed over him like ice water. Why indeed would Tobirama have taken a photograph like that? Had he meant to send it to someone else? Had he taken it for a another person? His panic was cut short when Tobirama snapped at him, slipping easily in to defensive mode.

“You’ve called me narcissistic many times yourself. If you can’t tell what that image is for then I don’t know how to break the news to you.”

“Well I just thought, you know, if it was meant for…”

“Someone else?”

Madara pulled the phone away from his ear so that he could scowl at it briefly, hoping Tobirama would feel his irritation through their connection. Then he brought it back to say, “Clearly. I seem to remember that Inuzuka boy blathering on about something called ‘dick pics’ while he was trying to explain the camera function to me.”

“It was meant to pander to my preference for exhibitionism when at the time I lacked a partner to exhibit myself for.” He paused, a moment in which Madara strained his ears for more. “I am, in fact, still without a partner. A life partner, I mean. Or, well, that’s a bit presumptuous, clearly not every relationship is meant to last for life but what I mean is–”

“Are you asking me to be your partner?”

“Well I was going to but not if you’re going to interrupt me in that tone.”

“Because you don’t actually hate me or because I got you off over the phone?” Madara huffed, using his sticky hand to wrench his clothing back in to place with something like offense settling in his stomach.

Tobirama echoed his huff. “Impossible man. Just hold on a moment.”

Before Madara had time to question what the man wanted him to hold on for there was a surge of chakra across the room and then he was very glad he’d taken the time to stuff himself back inside his pants. Tobirama’s head swung from side to side as he took in the room he had just appeared in, clearly looking for Madara, and he narrowed his eyes when he spotted his prey.

“Are you deliberately this obtuse or do you somehow go through life with your eyes closed without noticing?” the man demanded, crossing the room with long strides to lean over and brace himself against the back of the couch with one hand, shoving his face right up in to Madara’s.

“I am not obtuse!”

“You can’t even tell when someone is flirting with you!”

“That’s – you’ve been flirting with me!?” Madara shoved the idiot away from himself so that he could rise to his feet with indignation. “What are you, five? A little girl pulling pigtails? You annoy me every chance you get and call it flirting? Not even your stupid lump of a brother is that poorly socialized to think that any sane human being would see your actions as some form of courtship ritual!”

“Would you shut up?”

Tobirama sneered in irritation and then hauled Madara up on to his toes for a searing kiss that cut off all further comments. As much as Madara wanted to cling to his argument that absolutely no flirting had happened, he gave in to Tobirama’s very convincing rebuttal rather quickly. It was hands down the best argument he’d ever lost and he did have to admit that the benefits of going along with this far outweighed the downsides. Actually, he couldn’t think of any downsides at all.

He very deliberately avoided thinking about what Hashirama’s reaction would be to this little development.

Groaning in protest when the delicious lips assaulting his own pulled away, Madara gathered what little cantankerous irritation was left in him and glared up at the man towering over him, a little insulted as he always was whenever he noticed again how much taller Tobirama was than him.

“You did send me that ‘dick pic’ on purpose, didn’t you? I know you did.”

“I maintain that it was an accident.”

“Bullshit.”

Tobirama shrugged. “Believe what you will. Although I should probably mention that I believe it was your brother which started the betting pool on when precisely you would clue in to my attentions. I’m not certain who has the spot for this month but we may wish to be discreet for now.” Madara pinched the bridge of his nose.

“I changed my mind. You’re too much trouble, get out of my house.”

“Hmm, so that’s a no on taking a few more personal photographs? These cellular phones are incredibly useful, wouldn’t you say?”

Madara paused to close his eyes and draw in a deep breath, letting it back out slowly before cracking his eyes open again for a very hard glare. He was sort of hoping his new partner might cower under the force of such a sharp expression but instead the only response he got was a single raised eyebrow.

“I hate you,” he grumbled.

“You’ll love what I can do with my tongue, though.”

“Can I take pictures of that?”

Tobirama didn’t answer him but Madara did notice the other man made sure to grab his cellphone as they stumbled down the hall towards his bedroom.  

He still didn’t understand for what purpose he had been given yet another unearned chance at life. Madara had no idea why he and Izuna and the Senju brothers had all been pulled away from what should have been their final rest. But that mattered less and less with every kiss the two of them shared on their stumbling journey down the hall. There didn’t need to be a reason for any of this; what mattered was the fact that he hardly remembered what it felt like to truly hate someone, that he had the life now he had dreamed of for so many years before.

What mattered was Tobirama and the oddly peaceful feeling of leaning in to his embrace. This new future with its strange technologies was no faultless paradise but it certainly had quite a few perks he very much intended to take advantage of like cellphones, dick pics, and the dimmer switch on the electric lightbulbs in his bedroom. Madara had no idea why he had been granted the life he’d always wanted – but he was happy to finally be happy.

[wombwomyn-blog]

seen almost all the things under the sun, and also our cocks happen to be unabashedly shoved into anything and have a hole after 1982.

Once upon a period, we stated the the BathMate series will harm your berries and twig in case you did not use it properly, so please pay attention to our warning regarding the X-Series. It's promoted as having thirty five % more energy than the original, therefore it is absolutely not for newbies.

If everything that mumbo jumbo seems just a little vanilla to you, do feel it does to us too. We are goddamn professionals here. Wrong. There is something to be reported about mid line products. Products as that are such as Goldilocks of contemporary merchandising; we have discovered the hard way too. Thus, simply being safe, we ignored every one of the prejudices of ours and tried it out there for ourselves.

This middle male lineup has 3 individual products, discernable just by their somewhat different sizes. And in case you are truly in the mood to become middle-of-the-road with your penis pump, you are able to choose the X30.

Each unit, regardless of its functions, looks, and size the very same manner. No, it does not provide you with an incredible blowjob. We want it did. Whether this particular thing works any better or perhaps any even worse compared to its cousins is the job of ours to work out. You are great.

Which may or might not be news that is good for all people. This moment, the chamber could be purchased with the colors red, apparently, because, or blue, white, large dicks are patriotic.

We have seen penis pumps constructed improved, but on the other hand, those fancy looking bastards did not do what they were meant to do also.

One is the best dog and also the other person is utilized by doctors. Yum!

What Is available in the Bathmate Hydromax Box?

We sort of liked that. Enough with all the overselling and also oversupplying already! We've a lot more "free samples" than we understand what you should do with.

A simple guidebook for bath as well as shower use

Needless to point out, the HydroMax production group spent very little time on attempting to wow you with looks and also worked really hard on their character instead. If this have been a pageant, the X Series will earn Miss Congeniality by a landslide.

The way It Measures Up

It's rigid and durable in construction, giving a sturdy and strong shield around the junk of yours. The comfort pads are legitimate too and, when used properly, offer a tighter seal from the body which further boosts the strength of the suction.

Nevertheless, the promise to provide almost as thirty five % more suction energy than the first BathMate series was definitely kept.

The Experience of ours with It When we initially started the package, we thought going with the X Series will be complicated, though we had been pleasantly surprised. We started to be quick fans of the enhancements, that have been apparent on most models.

The removable comfort pads have been nice, although enhanced bellow size certainly caught the attention of ours. Meanwhile, the dimensions of the inner convolutes was lowered, so we had a large amount of extra space for penile development. Using the device was simple and easy, and the recently created Superflow valve, that is showcased on most HydroMax models, made managing the stress inside the chamber very secure and also simple.

Our Jeers and cheers Because we wound up attempting all 3 series within the HydroMax lineup, we sensed justified to provide the not-so humble opinion of ours about the X. All things considered, we love chatting smack regarding exes. As a result, we'd several happy memories and several nightmarish recollections, but absolutely nothing a little counseling could not correct.

PROS

Bad and big - The X Series gives males a selection of sizes to select from, with additional space inside to support growth.

Promises, Promises - All HydroMax items include a 2 year limited warranty.

Fuck yeah!

Functions Like a Charm - The company had one point right: this child of a gun does provide a fatter dick.

CONS

Gator Aid - You will require some help setting the gators, that are extremely big, somewhat versatile, and attached SECURELY on the base.

Do not Do this from home - Unless you intend on reading and sticking to the instructions carefully, do not actually use this particular thing. It is going to rip your dick off.

[theonceoverthinker]

OUAT 2X14 - Manhattan

I don’t have a pun for this time, but I wanted to say that this is probably one of the episodes that I was the most excited to cover for this rewatch for a few reasons. First, I haven’t watched it since my initial watch of the series so apart from the broad strokes of the story, I’ve forgotten a great deal of it. Second, it’s one of the biggest and best received episodes of the season from a General Audiences standpoint from what I understand. Third, I’ve never had a real opinion on Neal because I binged Seasons 2 and 3, so this episode will provide me the opportunity to do just that! Finally, it takes place in New York and who doesn’t love New York!

...Don’t answer that! Anyway, I hope you’ll read my review of this episode which is just under the cut, so I’ll CUT to the chase. Ha! Turns out I did have a pun in me! Okay! Let’s get started!

Press Release While Mr. Gold, Emma and Henry go in search of Gold’s son Bae in New York, Cora, Regina and Hook attempt to track down one of Rumplestiltskin’s most treasured possessions. Meanwhile, in the fairytale land that was, Rumplestiltskin realizes his destiny while fighting in the Ogres War. General Thoughts - Characters/Stories/Themes and Their Effectiveness Past We gotta talk about the forking Seer and how she relates to Rumple. First, on a strictly aesthetic level, look at the way that the Seer moves her hands as she asks for water! It looks a bit like how Rumple moves his hands when he gets the Seer’s powers. Also, even her voice is sing-songy in the scene as per the captions, matching Rumple’s. Second, on a more narrative level, it’s really interesting to examine just how much of the Seer ended up becoming part of Rumple. When we see Rumple first become the Dark One, while manipulative at times, because said manipulation happens with Bae as a child, it’s played as more of manipulation that any authority figure could conceivably do cranked up to 11. And when he’s not with Bae and he’s dealing with others, he’s blunter, not as cunning as he grows to be later. But the Seer, like him in later flashbacks, picks upon more vulnerable parts of Rumple’s psyche, like how she brings up Milah and Rumple’s fears of his past and cowardice.

So I know that there are some complaints about Rumple’s discussed reasoning for turning back from the Ogres Wars was changed to being about Bae to about Rumple’s cowardice, and I actually couldn’t disagree more. This entire flashback’s setup isn’t about Rumple’s excitement to be a father, but about how he is more scared than he realizes of fighting and dying in the war. That’s how, as I mentioned before, the Seer initially gets him: by mentioning his father’s cowardice and his desire to stray away from that path. In the next flashback scene, Rumple shows much more explicit fear at those harmed in the war and one of the most poignant lines from that scene is about praying for a quick death and the final words he says to what he thinks is the Seer is “and I’m gonna die.” I honestly feel like this was a revelation that was always supposed to come out. It doesn’t lessen Rumple’s love for Bae or that that loves is any less powerful, for he wants to live for Bae, but from a story perspective, the main throttle of Rumple’s decision to harm himself does lean more towards cowardice. Hell, even Milah hits the ball on the head: “You left because you were AFRAID.”

“It will require a curse -- a curse powerful enough to rip everyone from this land.” Note that the Seer says this as Rumple’s asking for the truth about him finding his son to be revealed. I feel like people forget about this line and how it pertains to Rumple’s journey back to Bae. Many in the fandom (Myself included) mock Rumple for needing a curse to traverse realms while there are many other ways to travel them as revealed over the course of the series. Now, I get that yeah, to an extent, that’s true. New magical MacGuffins are introduced so that new characters can be introduced and so that we can see our current cast battle the fairytale elements with their modern mindsets and emotional problems (I personally find it more annoying when it’s mocked to the point where it’s used as an actual story critique, forking Cinema Sins and the mentality they’ve introduced for many who criticise films over minute details rather than how the work functions as a story -- this is why you will never see me take a point off for a plot hole). But back on topic, Rumple was told by both the Blue Fairy and now the Seer that he’d need a curse to get back to Bae, and so he kept that in mind. Present I know that a major point of contention is Emma not telling Neal about Henry when he brought up the idea of something good coming of their relationship, and I think it’s more of a complicated situation, one akin to both her initial lie to Henry in “True North” and her decisions in “Fruit of the Poisonous Tree,” where to say that something is objectively right or wrong is missing the point. Yes, Emma shouldn’t have lied and the episode is very explicit with how that was the wrong decision. However, look at what she’s dealing with. A vulnerable time in her life is now being further bastardized with the knowledge that it was all a conspiracy and while I like Neal, he didn’t exactly broach the subject with tactful bedside manner, instead trying to rationalize something so personal and painful to her. Also, I want to point out how Emma on some level knows this. That’s why she calls Mary Margaret in the very next present scene. But she doesn’t do the right thing. Look, this isn’t the easiest episode to be an Emma fan during, and I know that well. And I swear, I’m doing my best to keep my fan goggles off, but I’m not going to pretend that it’s not a nuanced situation when it is. And finally, Emma is chewed out for her decision. Henry gives her a “Reason You Suck Speech,” calling her just as bad as Regina, a line that hurts but is justified and given with an appropriate level of painfulness from an eleven year old. And even her initial apology isn’t enough.

So, that first confrontation between Rumple and Neal. Wow. What I like about Neal as he pertains to Rumple is that he immediately gives Rumple no leniency. I talked about this briefly during my review of “The Return,” but this is such an important distinction to Rumple’s other biggest loved one, Belle, who has somewhat looser parameters. From the second Neal sees Rumple again, he’s blunt about his intentions and exactly what he thinks about what Rumple’s capable of. I don’t want to say that there’s no love there, but it is pushed back in terms of Neal’s priorities, buried under decades of bitterness. And at the same time, while full of love, Rumple is still using his old tricks to get Neal to talk to him. He leverages his deal with Emma for more time to talk to him and while it works, it only serves to get more ire out of Neal. Rumple’s apology is likewise undeniably sincere, but the manner in which it is both gotten and attempted to be implemented completely miss the point that the anger produced can’t be healed so easily. I mean, just look at Neal’s face when he says that there’s magic in Storybrooke. Every benefit of every doubt is abandoned like the Stiltskin boys across portals. That having been said, with three minutes of time for an apology, I feel like we almost got more out of Rumple’s apology to August in “The Return” than we did here. Where are the tears? Why isn’t Rumple saying as much as he possibly can? It’s not enough to take points off or anything, but this meeting is partially what the first season and a half were building towards, and I kind of wanted more umph to it. That also having been said, I get that because Neal is a different person from August’s rendition of him entirely, of course the reactions are going to be different, and Neal’s speech after he’s done talking blows the conversation away. Credit to Michael Raymond James because in this scene, he completely kept up with Robert Carlyle, and that’s not always an easy feat, especially in such an emotionally charged scene. Insights - Stream of Consciousness -It is so bizarre to see Rumple and Milah happy. It’s a great contrast to how bad things got between them and is a great show of how Rumple’s cowardice really affected Milah, turning her from someone who looked so content into the miserable woman from the flashback in “The Crocodile.” All throughout the scene, they’re so dopey-eyed and in-sync towards the end. I honestly would love to read a fic where they managed to come to terms with their past and maybe be able to forgive each other, and I know I’m alone in this, but there is a story there. -”My weaving days are over.” *thinks about how in roughly 250 years, he goes by Weaver* Suuuuuure, Rumple. -Okay, seeing an adorably excited non-Dark One non-present timeline Rumple is just the best. Robert Caryle really shows Rumple’s youth here, excited, bouncy, full of music and light. It’s an honest job and plays against the cowardly spinster we see in “Desperate Souls,” the blunter Mr. Gold and the silly, but frightening Dark One version of Rumple, it makes for such a unique contrast! -Milah also gets such a unique contrast in another respect, being the more cautious half of the relationship compared to how she is after Rumple arrives home. -”But to the world?” So, when in the series finale, the idea of “the Rumplestiltskin the world will remember” came up and kept being echoed like it was this important thing, I felt that it kind of came out of nowhere because I hadn’t ever seen Rumple concerned with his legacy beyond the more isolated well being of his children, grand and great-grandchildren, and wife. However, as I hear this line, it makes a bit more sense to me, especially because this is the same episode that discussed the Henry prophecy, which was also touched upon in the series finale. -So, Rumple does that bug-eyed thing that I complained about in the last episode, but here, because the confrontation between Rumple and Bae is impending and is isolated as the main reason for his concern, it works sooo well! -Killian, thank you for breaking up that horrible mother/daughter moment! -”Names are what I traffic in, but sadly, no.” This line cracked me up! XD -”I’m not answering anything until you tell me the truth.” That’s a pretty solid rule of thumb, Emma. Neal’s definitely no villain, but just going forward, that’s a good mindset to have! -”I am the only one allowed to be angry here!” She’s got a point, Neal. You’re not really explaining yourself in a way that you’d be justified in being angry. -I love spotting bloopers as they’re happening. It’s like the OUAT version of finding Hidden Mickeys! -”My son’s been running away for a long time now.” When?! He ran away ONCE and he wasn’t even trying to run from you. He was trying to take you with him, in fact! Did you forget that?! -Henry and Rumple get a great scene! -I know you’re Baelfire.” Fun fact, last year at NJ con, I got this question wrong in the true/false game. But now I know the truth, and I’m coming for you again, Jersey! -Gotta give all the credit in the world to Jennifer Morrison here. There’s so much pain in her voice as Neal’s revealing the truth to Emma and Jen just captures how Emma’s barely holding her shirt together because now even more of her life has been shown to be a lie, and this time, a more vulnerable memory has been made even worse because of this new knowledge. -”To remind myself never to trust someone again.” That is such a tragic line. Even as Storybrooke has done a major job of changing Emma’s mindset in that regard, you do still see bits of that distrust in her personality. That’s why I like the concept of Emma’s walls being a constant in the series. -”You’ll never have to see me again.” Neal, you do know that your father is clearly still chasing you, right? You think he’s gonna give up so soon? -I like how as Rumple agreeing to watch the Seer, you can already see that his face has fallen and that he’s grown more haggard, showing some of that fear already striking him now that some of the initial adrenaline has worn off and the reality of the war is settling in. -”Who are you?” Jeez Belle, why not say “hi” like a decent person? -Regina, you know, instead of playing The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, it could be easier to, you know, look in her bag instead. -David, Thanksgiving with your family would be the best thing EVER! -Apparently, Bae learned to be a locksmith from Rumple. Neat! -Another great use of the weather from OUAT! The snow really helps to accentuate the dire straits of the war and is just adds a nice bit of texture to the scene so that it’s not just dirt against a night sky. -On the opposite end, Rumple hurting himself, especially as someone who is overcoming some serious orthopedic issues right now, is so uncomfortable to watch. Rumple’s screams actually gave me shudders. -As if I didn’t have enough reasons to praise the living daylights out of Robert Carlyle, just look at the moments when he enters Neal’s apartment. It’s the first glimpse that he gets of everything his son went through as a result of his actions and it’s subtly heartbreaking. -To add to this Robert Carlyle acting chain, his eyes as he screams “tell me” is forking hysterical! -Rumple’s splint makes me so uncomfortable. Go see a better doctor! -”A strong name!” Rumple straight up indignation as he says that cracks me the fork up! -I like Milah’s buildup of frustration as Rumple arrives home. At first, she’s almost smiling as she tells Rumple Bae’s name, but as she quickly confronts him and learns the facts, she gets angrier until we see the beginnings of the misery that sets off “The Crocodile.” I also want to note that Milah’s anger is for Bae’s sake, not for her own like in “The Crocodile,” and I think that is such an important distinction. A lot of people condemn Milah for her choice to leave Bae and my degree of agreement with that statement varies if you’re asking me to view it in terms of her choice as an individual vs comparisons with other characters, but I think it’s important to show that love for Bae. -forking hell. Die, Cora! -I think I do enough of a job complimenting the effects team to be able to laugh at the New York backdrop during Emma and Henry’s conversation. -I ADORE the design of the Seer, by the way. The stitched up face and the eyeballs on her hands is just so cool! -It’s interesting to note that the last scene of the flashback happens after the events of “The Crocodile’s” flashback, as Rumple states that his wife ran away, and not “died.” -Rumple, to quote a magnificent show of great quality, “If you could gaze into the future, you’d think that life would be a breeze, seeing trouble from a distance, but it’s not that easy. I try to save the situation, then I end up misbehaving. Oh-oh-o-o-o-oh!” (I’ll write a ficlet for the first person to tell me what I’m referencing). -”Okay. I get it. We’re all messed up.” *Takes a deep breath* Ookay, Neal. You sent Emma to jail, and while it may have helped break the curse, it also put her through some serious shirt. You don’t get to make light of that. -”In time, you will work it all out.” Yeah, about 250 years, but he does get there, and it’s pretty freakin’ awesome when he does! Arcs - How are These Storylines Progressing? Rumple finding his son - I probably should’ve listed this as an arc long ago, but I forgot. In any case, Rumple finally found him! The journey from the start of the series here was a fantastically well done one! I feel like it never dragged or took any longer or shorter than the season and a half that it ended up lasting. And now, it kind of gets a second life. Rumple is now physically with his son, but emotionally couldn’t be further from him, and we get to see Rumple trying to bridge that gap. I don’t remember liking this part of it, but on concept alone, it’s so fascinating to see that next step. Emma lying to Henry - I like that Emma gets to have a flawed moment with Henry and that Henry actually reacts to it so negatively. For a season and a half now, Emma’s been Henry’s hero so of course when she not only lies, but to such an extent, he’s going to have a bad reaction because he’s put her on a pedestal. Not only is it an interesting character moment for Henry, but as I mentioned before, it’s a good job on the narrative’s part in punishing Emma for her lie. Favorite Dynamic Rumple and Henry. To be honest, Neal and Rumple should absolutely go here, but their entire conversation is more story based, and I talked about them ad nauseum up in that category, so why not highlight another dynamic? Rumple and Henry are so supportive and kind to each other here, and it feels like both good foreshadowing of their familial relationship, a show of the progress both characters had made thus far when it comes to how they treat their loved ones, and a tragic setup for not only the let down they both get from their respective loved ones, but also of the prophecy. For the latter one, for most of he episode, it felt a little weird seeing Rumple talk to Henry so softly despite knowing the prophecy. It felt a bit like him raising a pig for slaughter. However, the end of the episode makes it clear that Rumple was just now remembering the prophecy as he watched Neal and Henry bond, and it works well enough for me. Their time together in the episode is just so gentle and in an episode that’s more or less full of harsh moments (those gentle moments included in hindsight), the break that Henry and Rumple give is desperately needed. Writer Adam and Eddy are really good at writing intricate storylines. When you look at their other episode like the “Pilot,” “A Land Without Magic,” and “The Queen of Hearts,” you notice that the situation the characters are put into are never so simple. Just like someone can’t or shouldn’t be expected to straight-up hate Regina in the “Pilot,” one can’t or shouldn’t be expected to hate Emma, Neal, Henry, or Rumple here (Except Cora. We can hate Cora allllll we want), no matter who you’re a fan of. That’s because they’re careful with their framing and character work as to never let one forget their full picture. And I think that holds especially true in “Manhattan.” Culture In my intro, I said I was excited to finally get an impression of Neal for myself. When you’re in a certain shipping camp like I am (Captain Swan), Neal tends to be thrown through the ringer. Hell, even my best friend in the fandom hates him. However, when you’re as anti-salt as I am, you tend to take a lot of the shirt thrown at him with a grain of...well, salt. This is part of the reason why this rewatch appealed to me so much. I always found Neal to be pretty average in my book. I remember liking him, but not having much of a reaction to either his actions or his death in Season 3 (I also feel like I should disclose the fact that I wasn’t in either of the shipping camps throughout Neal’s entire present existence on the show), and I feel like I’d be remiss not to talk about him a bit now, especially as this is his debut present episode and affords him the most perspective.

So here goes.

I like Neal. I don’t love him. If you asked me to line up every character in the show, he’d probably end up near August, and I like August too, though not as much as major characters like Rumple, Regina, and Emma.

What’s appealing to me about Neal is his non-exaggerated blunt personality. The way he curb stomps Rumple’s apology is so in-your-face, as if to scream to an audience that already finds sympathy for Rumple that his pain matters too and it will be paid attention to. This works by keeping him a sympathetic character, but also giving him a compelling dynamic. As for Emma, that bluntness also helps, but in a way that makes Emma more sympathetic. I mentioned before that Neal’s exposition about his part in the conspiracy of sending Emma to jail was less than ideal, and it’s part of what contributes to her decision to lie about finding him. Neal is a bit of a jerk, obviously not devoid of either the heroism or love of his former selves, but it’s a character quality all the same and a good one, especially because to my memory, it stays around and is pretty organic. It paints the trauma that he’s had at the hands of the world since his abandonment as it’s such a stark contrast to his Enchanted Forest self.

Rating Golden Apple. What a great episode! It goes in with the promise of payoff for quite a few major story elements and does exactly that. It’s unwaveringly harsh in many respects, but that’s why it works as well as it does. Neal’s addition to the main cast shakes things up and provides new opportunities for characters, for as harsh as it is to watch, seeing Emma lie about Neal and be punished for it was a good narrative choice, and the flashback was utterly fantastic in its storytelling! Flip My Ship - Home of All Things “Shippy Goodness” Swan Fire - Listen to that vulnerability as Emma says Neal’s name and that happiness that Neal just can’t keep out of his voice as he says Emma’s! That’s just fantastic! Also, he keeps the dreamcatcher! Also also, that “leave her alone” was romantic as all hell! Captain Floor - I’m very pissed at myself for not mentioning the best ship ever at any point before this. Like, Killian and the Floor just belong together, and to not acknowledge that was a callous mistake on my part! My sincerest apologies to my reader base, and I beg for you not to think I’m at all an anti! ()()()()()()()()() It feels so good to give this season a high grade again!!!! Woohoo!! Thank you for reading and to the fine folks at @watchingfairytales for putting this project together!

Next time...someone DIES!!!

...I’m saying that like we all don’t know who it is that dies… ...Please come back…I’m so lonely...

Season 2 Tally (124/220) Writer Tally for Season 2: Adam Horowitz and Edward Kitsis: (39/60) Jane Espenson (25/50) Andrew Chambliss and Ian Goldberg (24/50) David Goodman (16/30) Robert Hull (16/30) Christine Boylan (17/30) Kalinda Vazquez (20/30) Daniel Thomsen (10/20)

Operation Rewatch Archives

[chacusha]

M, V, Z!

M - Name a character that you’d like to have for a friend.

This is quite hard! In real life, I don’t tend to seek out close friendships, and fiction-wise, I’m drawn to characters who are quite self-absorbed and have a lot of Issues, which makes them not very great friend material (but great fanfic material).

This is so random, but because I was reading fic for Disney’s Pinocchio recently, I think Pinocchio and Lampwick would both be great friends in different ways. Pinocchio would be an otherworldly nerd too pure for this world, which is a type I can appreciate IRL. Lampwick would be the outgoing extravert who adopts you as a best friend five minutes after meeting you, which is helpful for me since I tend to need to be actively welcomed and included in a friend group or I just become a wallflower.

I can’t really think of anyone in ASOIAF I’d really jibe with. Maybe Sam and other maesters-in-training because Nerds. From the various Star Trek series I’ve seen so far, I think I’d want to be friends with Julian Bashir the most – he’s personable, has a great sense of humor, and seems to actively put time into one-on-one relationships (e.g. with Dax, O’Brien, and Garak).

V - Which character do you relate to most?

Not a character, but I think the #1 most accurate depiction of me in media is Ditto:

Consider:

Mimicry - I’ve always thought I don’t have a distinctive art/writing style but that I’m good at mimicking styles and find it fun to do so. (However, Inktober has made me rethink this given that I drew like 20 different fandoms and somehow there is something similar to my drawings.)

Normal type - I have a strong self-conception of myself as mediocre – not outstanding in any way. Normal type Pokemon sounds very much my thing.

Facial expression - My default mood is “mildly happy”. That’s just the kind of person I am. Look at that face, that vapid smile. That face is my default mood.

I mentioned this already, but when I was younger, I also related a lot to various Blue Oni characters: people who tend to be calm, unemotional, muted, quiet, brainy, especially because I frequently had the experience that I didn’t really understand a lot of common life experiences or skills (like romantic attraction, making smalltalk, etc.). Spock, Rei Ayanami, and Jin (from Samurai Champloo) are examples (and still, I’m quite pleased when people compare me to those characters). But I think I’ve grown more passionate and social over time, so I don’t think these characters really capture my personality so well anymore. :/

Another related type is characters that are pompous, self-important, uptight, goody-two-shoes, “but the RULES!!” types. Good examples of this are Cogsworth, Zazu, Percy Weasley, etc. When I was younger, I related to the teacher’s pet instinct; as I get older, I frequently look back at my younger self and am like, “I was so full of myself!” (I mean that in a fond way.)

Z - Just ramble about something fan-related, go go go!

Have some random thoughts on Petyr/Sansa and dark / non-con pairings in general:

I realized yesterday that I’ve never really shipped or felt tempted to read/write Petyr/Sansa even though there’s a ship in another fandom that I DO enjoy a lot that is very similar to Petyr/Sansa (namely: it involves a character who has separated and isolated another character from her family/anyone who loves her and then relentlessly groomed that character to be exactly what they want her to be). What’s the difference between the two?

I think it’s this: I don’t actually have a good handle on Petyr’s characterization. As GRRM has written him so far, he’s a very enigmatic character, and I don’t have a good sense of what’s hiding under the generally genial facade. Is he a dark romantic, like so many of GRRM’s characters – a Heathcliff type? Is he a sociopath – callous about how his actions affect others – or sadistic – actively delighting in hurting others? Or is he a Magnificent Bastard type – smart, charming, and truly genial (just in a villainous way)? Is he a complicated mix of various of those types, for example someone who thinks he’s a Magnificent Bastard but really is a wounded spurned ex underneath? I think each of those reads results in a hugely different dynamic with Sansa. Lacking evidence, part of fandom is picking whatever characterization you like best, but the problem is, I can’t decide what I WANT Littlefinger to be. I have no strong mental image of who I think he should be, which makes it hard for me to attach a concrete dynamic to the Petyr/Sansa pairing.

By contrast, in the pairing in the other fandom, the abuser in it has VERY clear characterization, and it’s of the “absolutely sadistic” type. I’ve just realized that makes that character ideal for dark, non-con fanfic because you can go REALLY dark with the character and it doesn’t seem OOC or like character bashing (very unlikely to get fans of that character riled up because they know what they signed up for in liking that character!). In other words, the character functions as a really perfect all-purpose non-con plot device. I find that really fascinating! I never realized that some characters function that way for me.

[bookishtaylorfan]

Kaz Brekker and the Miracle Cure

If you’re involved in the YA community, you may have heard of Kaz Brekker, aka Dirtyhands, aka Bastard of the Barrel, aka Thief of my Heart and Doesn’t Have the Fucking Decency to Put It Back.

He’s one of the protagonists from Leigh Bardugo’s amazing Six of Crows series and likely the toughest, baddest motherfucker in there. He's feared, respected, looked up to. He masterminded a heist to break into the most secure prison in the world. He brawled his way through a armed criminal gang and won.

He also walks with a limp and uses a cane.

Kaz suffers from a form of mental trauma as well, but for this post, I mainly want to address his physical handicap. Physically disabled characters, I feel, can be broadly categorized into 3 archetypes: 1) the delicate flower who needs to be protected (this type is largely relegated to a background character and/or used to further the protagonist's character arc; 2) the miserable guy who thinks he's weak and broken (this character arc usually culminates into acceptance and maybe a miracle cure as a "reward"); 3) the badass who is perfectly happy in his skin and doesn't need pity.

All of them have their flaws—Yes, even (3). Total acceptance cheapens the complicated feelings most handicapped folk have towards their bodies, even if they've made peace with it. I should probably mention right now I use a wheelchair. I suffer from myopathy, which is a type of muscular dystrophy that cause progressive weakness and loss of muscle mass... and I can see your eyes glazing like Donald Trump's when he doesn't hear his name spoken every 30 seconds, so I'll get on with it. I was told by a doctor years ago (awful, bad-tempered fellow) that I'd die at 16. I'm 24 now and still breathing, so fuck you.

(It's just him. Most doctors are lovely and I wouldn't have reached this height of living pettiness without them)

The point I was trying to make got away from me while I was distracted. ANYWAY, Kaz mostly belongs in Category 3. I say "mostly" because his character transcends the one-dimensional archetype into a nuanced, well-developed person. Included in that—ah, yes, finally, the apex point I've been driving towards 300 words ago—is his rejection of the "miracle cure."

The miracle cure is what I like to call the ending of James Cameron's Avatar. What's-his-name is magically healed at the end, part of his happily-ever-after package deal, along with the girl and two castles. 

What gets me isn't the unrealistic aspect, because that's defeatist talk. I don't shun medicine or physical therapy; I don't want to be the kind of person promotes a positive body image over actual health. If a cure existed for myopathy, I might take it. Might. That's a point that needs further unpacking. For now, let's focus on the harmful implications of the fictional miracle cure. It suggests that we can't be happy in a crippled body and that our handicap defines our identity. A character arc <i>is</i> self-defining. That's the whole point, for the hero to learn and grow. If a miracle cure is what the hero earns at the end of his journey, then it implies his handicap is a flaw that had to be overcome for him to become a better, more fulfilled human being.

But wait! What if he'd already accepted his handicap before suddenly being bestowed the miracle cure? Same thing. Consider the "makeover" trope, where the male best friend realizes he's been in love with the MC all along and the movie fades out with her in his arms, wearing a pretty dress and lip gloss, smiling faintly as he confesses he loves her inside and out. Then why end with her beautified? Why not roll the credits over her plain self? Because even though he's accepted it, it's still a "flaw" that had to be corrected. The message becomes insincere.

Going back to the cure for myopathy. This is delicate ground and I don't presume to speak for the entire disabled community. Different people perceive and process their handicaps differently. I can only speak for myself when I say that I would accept a cure—conditionally. It's not the most important thing in my life. It's definitely an integral part of my identity, but it's not all of me. Honestly, I'd be very upset if you treated me just like everyone else (i.e. not holding doors open, organizing outings that are physically taxing, etc).

An example might help. If I had a choice between being as physically able as the average person or winning ten million dollars, I'd take the money. Honest to God. Call me materialistic, but I'd take a mansion with the library from Beauty & the Beast over walking. Simply put, it's about priorities. I don't prioritize a cure as my life ambition.

I am more than my disability. My dreams are bigger.

And now we come back to Kaz Brekker. He has the choice to be cured in his fictional universe, to ditch the cane, function without a nagging ache in his knee. But he chose not to. He decided to incorporate his handicap as part of his myth, choose a lead-lined cane to enhance his fighting style, transform his weakness into armor.

He rejected the miracle cure and came out on top. The deadliest boy in the Barrel is a cripple.

Now you see why I love him.

(Part of the 2017 Shattering Stigma book blogger event, which aims to remove some of the stigma surrounding mental illness and disability. Originally posted on Of Wonderland: http://ofwonderland.com/2017/10/04/guest-post-kaz-brekker-miracle-cure/)

[crystalnet]

Favorite 5 Consoles of All Time

Consoles are fun to think about. This is a given for any gamer. Beyond just being the things that we play our favorite games on though, consoles can offer a unique experience unto themselves based mostly on the games they offer, but also in the way their individual characteristics set them apart from what comes before and after. When a console is successful, I believe that it has a sum-greater-than-its-parts effect, and feels like one big cohesive platform with something unique to offer. Without further ado, let’s get into it (this one is long)...

1. PS2

In my mind this one is almost indisputably one of the top three consoles of all time and the only way I can imagine it not being included in your top 3 or even your number 1 is if you either never owned one and never so much as played any of its classics, or maybe if you're way more into SNES or N64 having grown up with those. Or maybe the Dreamcast is preferable if you're kind of freaky (I get that), or you prefer OG playstation because of the plethora of dank, god-level JRPGs. As for other 6th gen consoles, maybe you are a Halo and Fable freak so you go for the OG Xbox (only Microsoft machine I respect) or you just have a weird thing for the Gamecube's comparatively skimpy but eclectic offering of 1st party titles and others (Sunshine, Mansion, Melee, MGS Twin Snakes, the "Capcom 5", yeah, I get that too). So yeah, basically you're wrong if you don't say PS2 is the greatest of all time unless you have a weird but understandable fetish for any of those several other consoles I mentioned.

For me though,  PS2 was my very first console. I was a bit late to the party due to only owning a Gameboy Color and later Advance throughout the 90s, so lucky me, I was rewarded for my patience with this beast of a console, going straight from 32-bit handheld titles like Mario Kart Grand Prix-- skipping right over the polygonal, blocky era of N64/Sega Saturn/PS1 that have unfortunately aged pretty poorly for me-- straight to the rich graphical prowess of this unstoppable machine. I couldn't have asked for a better introduction to console gaming, for in the following years I would have my formative experiences with some of the most eclectic and deep games I have ever played to this day.

Exclusives on this thing are, in my opinion, probably the best of any console ever, beating out even most if not all Nintendo consoles in terms of its exclusives which is no mean feat given that exclusives are  Nintendo's bread and butter. But everything from Tekken 4, to Final Fantasy X, to Ratchet and Clank and Jak and Daxter, to Kingdom Hearts, to Persona 3 and 4, to Katamari Damacy, to MGS 2 and 3... to...to... I could keep going for a while but probably should avoid devolving into listing, but a lot of those games are still to this day my favorite experiences, and they run the gambit in terms of genre, with everything from fighters and platformers to JRPGs and puzzle games and tactical espionage survival-shooters (or I should just say MGS3) being represented excellently. To me, these games and a few others might just be the peak of gaming as far as I’m concerned. PS2 is that perfect sweet spot for me, before things got maybe a tad too complicated and loaded down with overworked graphical spectacle but after the unbridled potential that SNES and PS1 games teased at, with the 6th generation's best titles delivering on that promise and then some.

It's especially impressive to me and worth noting that this console doesn't have anything in the way of a mascot like a certain plumber or hedgehog, while also not having a single killer-app, must-own title either, like Halo was for Xbox. Unlike Gamecube or Xbox, there wasn't a single game that you just knew a person was going to own if they had a PS2 back in the day, whereas Smash Melee or Halo seemed like default games for their respective consoles. This speaks to the eclecticism of the console's lineup. It had pretty much anything that was conceivably multi-platform while also having tons of unique games made by devs that were loyal to Sony and pretty much only Sony during this time. Square Soft (still Soft for just a bit longer..) and Konami bolstered the system by putting out some of the greatest Final Fantasy and Metal Gear games in the franchise while lighter platforming fare like Jak and Daxter and Ratchet and Clank from Insomniac and Naughty Dog made good on the promise of previous genre's 3D platforming excellence. Indeed this was the last time 3D platforming would really be a big thing, but the genre went out on a great note due to these two series’ and the Sly Cooper titles to a lesser extent (stealth platforming).

With Crash out of the game, Sonic's cache quickly fading and others like Spyro or Rayman being relegated c-list status, these two titles combined sand-box gaming (in Jak's case) and inventive shooting-centric combat (in Ratchet and eventually Jak's case) with the now classic tenets of the genre that Super Mario 64, Crash and Banjo Kazooie set precedents for. And both of these power-duos kind of vie for a role as Sony's mascot, but I think it pretty quickly became apparent that the whole idea of a mascot was by then both passe and unnecessary, unless he was Mario or Master Chief (indeed Mario is kind of so uncool that he has always remained cool unlike Sonic or Crash, while Master Chief with his sci-fi para-militaristic edginess made older leading characters shrivel upon comparison (save for like Solid Snake or that Half-Life 2 guy maybe)).

That's kind of a tangent though, but I think the way that the console doesn't have any single one game or franchise that everyone hails as the quintessential  PS2 is part of what makes the console's line-up so strong. There was also an especially strong presence of combo-heavy hack-and-slash titles like God of War and Devil May Cry which aren’t really in my wheelhouse but I do respect them. More relevant to the purposes of this blog and my own penchant for JRPGs, this console is far and away the best console for JRPGs during this generation. Dreamcast comes in 2nd place probably for JRPGs this gen, with Gamecube just on its heels, and while they both have their fair share of titles, PS2 comes out on top easily almost based solely on that fantastic run of Final Fantasy games, from X, to XI, to XII (XI is multiplat but good lord, I spent hundreds and hundreds of hours on this MMO, and it was kind of a big deal to even be playing an MMO on a console, not to mention the greatest MMO of all time). Add in the SMT/Persona games and you have one of the top 3 consoles for JRPGs of all time, alongside the PS1 and SNES, based almost solely off of two franchises. But then there's also the excellent Dark Cloud and Rogue Galaxy games from Level 5, the Kingdom Hearts games (say what you will, they're solid), stand-outs like Odinsphere from VanillaWare, and the sort-of-trashy but sort-of-brilliant games like the Dot Hack titles (okay those are only brilliant to me), and these and many more round out a very strong presence for the genre, including stuff like Xenosaga and Dragon Quest VIII, both of which I still need to get to. There’s literally probably 1000+ hours worth of solid JRPG experiences on this console given the sheer amount of them.

So yeah, this console is just kind of god-level all around. Multi-platform titles like SSX3 and Resident Evil 4 have a strong presence as well. Throw in pretty decent online functionality back when that wasn't a given and DVD/CD compatibility and you have something that truly felt like an all-purpose entertainment console. Oh and the Dual-Shock 2 was the best controller at the time, and probably at that moment was the best controller so far (I would say it still is but the Dual-Shock 4 is a strong contender despite slightly lacking battery life). So yeah, this thing is a beast. I could talk about it all day because I feel like it deserves that but I should move on before I start doing extended commentary on each and every unique 5-star game this thing offered. I'll leave you with this... Picture it... Christmas morning 2002. Kingdom Hearts came out in March and you've been patient all year. Biding your time. This Xmas, your mother is finally coming around to the idea of a console and you know what you must do... for your first games you carefully select Tekken Tag Tournament, Final Fantasy 7, 8, 9 and Tactics (respect discounted PS1 gold) and a certain goofy-as-hell, but beautiful crossover game.. all year you've been pining over the ad-spot that played during Toonami featuring that unstopable J-Pop Utada Hikaru song and now... at last, in front of your whole family, you boot up the PS2 for the first time and behold, your just desserts...  Dame Utada. And yes, the whole family is on board with this otaku dreamscape. Dream on gamerz.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKsX02Zc9eE

2. Wii

Moving right along. We jump ahead in time all of 4 years from when I first got PS2 and 6 years total from when PS2 first dropped and we arrive at the undoubtedly troubled but still deeply worthwhile 7th gen. And while Microsoft and Sony were unveiling they're grotesquely expensive bionic bastardizations of a console, strapped down with overly pricey bells-and-whistles that put the focus on everything but actual gameplay, Nintendo had cooked up something drastically different with the Wii-- a weird, slightly under-powered, quirky-as-hell at best, gimmicky-as-fuck at worst, and comparatively compact and cheap console simply called the Wii (originally titles the Revolution). It's fun to think back to the excitement and promise in the months leading up to the launch of the Wii... a whole new kind of controller and way of playing. A console that seemed to have a real philosophy that wasn't based solely around pretty as fuck graphics that would make your eyes bleed. And that excitement lasted well into the first year or so of the console. Wii Sports is a behemoth of cross-generational accessibility, and made for some very fun Christmas mornings across the planet, I imagine. Twilight Princess, though in actuality a delayed Gamecube title, was super solid and one of the better launch games of all time. Then there were other lighter, motion-control heavy titles early on like WarioWare Smooth Moves, Rayman Raving Rabbids or Super Monkey Ball Banana Blitz that were fun if uneven and a little jank-y. Rounding it out were games like Red Steel (ghetto but kinda fun!) and Excitebike (underrated!) that round out the genre diversity. So yeah, not a bad launch really. The big problem with the Wii though, was keeping up the impressive momentum that it started with. 

The gestalt of the system was always very strong. An impressive interface that was fun and easy to use with relaxing "zen" feeling ambiance added to the relaxing and intuitive feeling of the console. The stark white and minimal presentation of the menus and the console itself, clearly inspired by Apple products and pre-figured by the gorgeous Nintendo DS-lite by about a year, were preferable to what Sony and Microsoft were doing. And the whole anti-graphical prowess, pro-innovation thing-- especially in retrospect-- seem kind of punk rock. In my mind, things got kind of nasty for gaming around this time, with the rise of Madden and Halo gamer bros, and the ridonculous price-tags of  PS3 and 360 making things feel both played-out and overwrought. But with the Wii, Nintendo offered a panacea. One that came with its own unique flaws and pitfalls mind you, but a panacea nonetheless.

The great Achilles heel of the console though, was the slow trickle of games. I think it's a shame that the console had this problem, but it's also pretty damn understandable. With lower graphical prowess, big triple-A titles had trouble living on this console, and devs were a bit reticent to develop for such a strange, motion-control-centric console. The whole idea of the wii remote and motion-control was brand new, and to my knowledge only existed before this in Kirby Tilt-&-Tumble (a really dope Gameboy Advance gyroscopic pinball riff). Nintendo should have realized that this was going to be an issue and either ramped up their 1st party projects or figured out a better way of courting third-party devs. The weird thing is, that by the end of the console's lifetime, the line-up actually comes outlooking pretty damn strong. And it's easily in my top 5 libraries of all time (is top console and top console library a different list?). But it's just that it took all 6 years of its life to get there. And as a gamer in high school, I felt this slow-trickle of strong releases very acutely. And when I look back, I realize it may simply have to do with a nearly-fatal lack of JRPGs initially and for much of its lifetime. Now this whole generation is kinda stinky for JRPGs and I'm just about to write a whole post on that, but still, I shouldn't have had to rely on the impressive albeit well-worn selection of Gamecube and Virtual Console titles to get my JRPG kicks while I waited.

The thing is, this console actually has 2 of the best JRPGs of the era, but they came out very late and almost not at all. It's all thanks to X-Seed's fantastic localization efforts that we even have the fantastic Xenoblade Chronicles and Last Story-- both of which Nintendo was frustratingly hesitant to even release in the west. So again, even though it took a while, the console ends up with super strong offerings in the long-run. First-party games were more the story of this console than any other Nintendo console, which is really saying something given their habit of relying on them. But here, they were especially dependent on their flagship franchises. Indeed, Mario Galaxy and Metroid Prime 3 are some of the best games of their respective franchises, not to mention Twilight and eventually Skyward, which I much prefer but paradoxically didn't like initially (plus it came at the tail-end like a lot of the other good ones). It seems like there's a big stretch there between the end of the first year and the last couples years of the console where pickings were just a bit too slim. But quirky third-party titles like No More  Heroes and Muramasa were excellent and proved that other developers like Suda51 and Vanillaware could knock games out of the park on the console, showing that Nintendo themselves weren't the only ones capable of this.

Indeed, by the end of the console, shit is solid as hell. My favorite version of Resident Evil 4. A very solid Fire Emblem game, when those were still kind of new to the states. Smash Brawl. Like you can't fuck with these games. So while I might seem like I'm spending a lot of time talking about the slight lack of high-quality games just to say that by the end that said library is actually super strong, it's because I can't overlook the flaws this thing had for a decent stretch of time there. It's just that I really love the Wii at this point in my life, but that I am still aware of my issues it had-- hell I'd even say I had a bit of a love-hate relationship with it. I simultaneously scorned the hardcore experience I felt I was missing out on while also wishing at least some of those games could exist on the Wii. At their worst, games could feel cheaply made and gimmicky, but then the very best games made the Wii and its unique controls feel like the pinnacle of gaming that gen. In retrospect though, even it's "flaws" at the time almost seem like strengths.

Yes, this console could be gimmicky, and roughly a third of the 1200 some odd titles are shovel-ware. It probably should have been like $50-100 dollars more expensive for the purposes of having a more impressive graphics card and Nintendo really needed to figure out how to either have more third-party exclusives or just more third-party support in general. BUT, despite all of that, this thing has ascended to legendary status in my mind. And I think it's strengths, and even some flaws, make it shine even brighter in my mind when I think of the ways that it represents something pure. With the Wii, Nintendo wanted simply to innovate and entertain. They didn't seek to blow us away with sheer processing power, and big, Hollywood-esque triple-A shooters that were as polished as they were soulless. No, instead they gave us something truly unique-- almost aggressively so, and everyone and their grandma and baby cousin benefited from it. And in a landscape where a lot of the glaring issues with big, dumb humdrum triple-A day-one DLC-baring titles continue to lack substance or anything remotely resembling a soul or anything in the way of spunk, the Wii and its philosophy on gaming is more valuable than ever. It prefigures what Nintendo continues to do with the next two consoles (to varying degrees of success) and it functions as a line drawn in the sand by Nintendo, by which they made more clear than ever before their goal to sing their own tune (N64 chose not to jump on the CD game and Gamecube has those mini-discs but were otherwise pretty regular comparatively). Moving forward, I think people have begun to realize that Nintendo's project is far more important than what Sony and Microsoft are doing in terms of sheer innovation and principles. While individual games on Sony and Microsoft games are still capable of being fantastic, those consoles lack a certain personality or cohesive aesthetic, whereas the Wii has it in spades. Nintendo had real guts for this, and a lot of it payed off very well, and I'll certainly be playing some of these games well into my septuagenarian years, as I imagine most of my generation will spend their retirement community days playing either Wii Fit/Sports or else maybe like PS8 Virtual Reality. And you know what? That sounds like a good time to this gamer.

3. Sega Dreamcast

Speaking of consoles with spirit and spunk. There's just something about the Dreamcast, and I know so many people would know exactly what I mean by that. Some kind of X-factor that is nigh impossible to pin point. Of course, the fact that it died off so pre-maturely and tragically certainly helps with the cult status. In fact I bought mine used 2 years after it ceased being sold new in stores (the Xmas after the big PS2 score), partly because of the ideal price-tag and cheap back-catalog of games, partly because I think I was going through my last Sonic the Hedgehog phase. But beyond it's unfortunate and rapid decline, the console is just special in a way almost no consoles seemed ever again after this generation save for like yeah probably the  Wii, or maybe the Switch and that's all. I love me some Sony to this day, but PS3 and PS4 feel more like the default consoles rather than like something unique and special like the Dreamcast was. Nintendo I think are the only ones that appreciate the idea of a console having a unique gestalt and philosophy, but whether it was intentional or not, Dreamcast also had that in spades. I don't know if it was intentional but there's something kind of... "urban" feeling about this console. Games like Jet Set Radio, Crazy Taxi and Sonic Adventure seemed to sport this specific kind of 90's lite-edginess that was a lot of fun and went well with the strong offering of sports games.

Then there are legendary games like Shenmue or Marvel vs Capcom 2 (eventually ported) that retain an arcade-y feel while also offering depth. Throw in some solid JRPGs including the first iteration of Phantasy Star Online (online on a console in 2000???), along with a solid Resident Evil entry, and a modded bootleg version of Metal Gear Solid 1, and you have a well-rounded winner of a console, with personality to spare. Of course, due to its untimely death, most of its games would be ported to the other more lucky gen-6 consoles, but certain titles-- most of which I've mentioned-- will always belong on the Dreamcast as far as I'm concerned. It's just one of those consoles where you weren't just playing a game that happened to be on Dreamcast. You were playing a Dreamcast game. Big difference.

The first of its gen, it was ahead of its time, with online functionality and a freakin browser(!!!), along with a unique controller that had a screen-baring memory card slot right there in the controller. In a way, it kind of vaguely pre-figures the Wii U a decade before tablet-centric gaming. Four controller slots made it more party-friendly than the PS2 (damn you multi-tap add-on) and I also just generally like the way the actual console itself looks compared to every other console around this time save for maybe the Gamecube, for what that's worth. In fact, I feel like Dreamcast kind of passed its torch off to Gamecube in the way that that console got a lion-share of Dreamcast ports including Sonic Adventure 2 Battle and Phantasy Star Online. Plus GC was the only other console in the gen to have the same kind of spunky individuality. PS2′s library was eclectic as fuck, but the console itself never felt as unique as the Dreamcast or Gamecube if only in terms of its sheer appearance or in terms of that ever-elusive x-factor. Hell, Gamecube has a much stronger library if I'm honest, but I already included the Wii which has backwards compatibility, and I never owned a Gamecube. But not to get derailed into changing my mind to include a console whose games I only ever played on my Wii while waiting for new Wii games to come out, I stand by the Dreamcast for what it represents and in a perfect world Sega, Nintendo and Sony will always be the holy trinity of console developers and Xbox never came along and eventually made things dumb and bro-y by the late aughties. Like I know it's not Microsofts fault, but ugh, what a bummer for the Dreamcast to be effectively replaced by the Xbox (I know Dreamcast's decline didn't have to do with Xbox per se, but still (indeed Microsoft helped Sega build the Dreamcast in the first place, in the process learning how to make their own watered-down bullshit console (truth be told, even though I'm a J-gamer through and through, I actually have a soft-spot for OG Xbox))).

But yeah, I just want the Dreamcast to know that I love it, and will always be here for it. Corny Sonic games and all (Sonic Shuffle is sick and underrated fyi). Dreamcast, you were not made for this world, but I will always love you despite the fact that there's only like 6 games on you that I'd ever want to revisit~

ps Also, it's just the best name for a console hands down. Like what even does "Dreamcast" mean (oh like broadcast I guess?)? It sounds cool and rolls off the tongue, and at least on some nights, is truly is the console of my dreams. Also, big ups to the modding community that kept this baby alive and still does.

4.  Nintendo Switch

Oh boy... now this is a bit ballsy seeing as this thing is all of 6 months old, but I can't deny how much enjoyment I've already gotten out of it already,-- or more importantly-- how much unbridled potential this thing has in every iota of its tidy little package. I feel I can include this because of some of the same reasons I raved about the Wii. In a landscape where PS4 and 360 seem a bit weight down by the sheer technical prowess of their most over-developed games, the slick and sporty and versatile Switch is a life-raft that does nothing less than breathe life into gaming in a time when pumping new ideas into the landscape is rare and ever essential, especially so given that triple-A developers are want to roll-out homogenized, open-world, over-the-shoulder uber-genre show-piece titles ad nauseum. The Switch is everything PS4 and 360 aren't while not being nearly as drastically outpaced technologically as the Wii was by its respective peers. Indeed, part of Nintendo's advantage is that they are essentially the sole inhabitants of the 9th generation (unless you count PS4 Pro or the whatever the deluxe Xbone is...). The Switch comes much closer to the graphical capability of PS4 and Xbone than the Wii did to it's respective peers while also offering unique handheld versatility, motion-controlling joy-cons, a touchscreen a la the problematic-if-promising Wii U AND the goldmine that is Nintendo's 1st party titles.

If Nintendo had a kind of uneven and weaker lot of 1st-party games on the Wii U, it seems like the Switch has them feeling inspired if Breath of the Wild is any indication. And yes, BotW is essentially a Wii U game, but good lord that game is fun to play in handheld mode, and what I have learned from the console, is that for me at least, most games are made exponentially better by simply having the option to be played on the go. Time will tell if the first-party entries will keep up the success of BotW though, but Mario Odyssey is almost certainly a slam-dunk for a 6-month old console, and Metroid Prime 4, the inevitable Pokemon and Animal Crossing games in 2018 seem to suggest that we won't have to worry about a lack of high-quality tiles. Really the only thing Nintendo has to worry about is that they keep a consistent flow of games coming out, namely good multi-platform and third-party titles in addition to the strong 1st party flagship titles that are probably on lock. And so far, so good on that front. There's been at least one big title every month, and the 3rd party and indie support seems to be strong in this one. Throw in some vintage-style JRPGs already on the console, and new big-budget ones like Xenoblade, and things seem to be infinitely promising for this little handheld/console combo that could. I think this shows that Nintendo has learned from the issues the Wii had, and that the Wii u had to an even larger extent, and are addressing it. 

The whole idea of creating a machine that effectively merges their predilection with handheld gaming with their big new console effort is a masterstroke on Nintendo's party. They have created a console in which big budget, triple-A titles can exist in a way that is arguably superior to the way their counterparts exist on PS4/XBO/PC simply because of handheld functionality. In this way, Nintendo can put big, pretty 1st and 3rd party tiles on it, while also putting a whole mess of good indie and low-budget and/or retro-style games like Spelunker World, Sonic Mania or I Am Setsuna (ported from PS4 but so much better on Switch (JRPGs are want to be played on the go when that is called for)). This has me most excited for what this means for JRPGs on the console, with things like Lost Sphere and Octopath making it seem like this might be Nintendo's best console for JRPGs since well Wii and Gamecube (JRPGs skipped N64 and basically Wii U entirely save for like Mario RPG and Tokyo Mirage Sessions/Xenoblade Chronicles X) and I write about that more elsewhere, but the fact that this range of kinds of titles can exist on the Switch may be a crucial boon for the console. So the next year or so will be proving ground for Nintendo, and these next few quarters are especially crucial, but things are looking very solid when you consider Mario Odyssey and Xenoblade 2 are just about to drop, closing out a super solid year 1 (calendar year that is, next March will be a true year).

So yeah, I'll have to check back in at the end of 2018, but assuming as many amazing first-party titles come out in 2018 as we have reason to believe they will, + RPG Factory’s Octopath, and I think next year will be just as strong as these initial months have been. It's a good time to be a gamer, and this is the most hopeful thing about this current era, so once again, Nintendo seems to be back on top in terms of promise and potential after a slightly problematic Wii U (problematic mostly just in terms of library. Wii U is fine but sports Nintendo's worst library since the NES or OG gameboy for my money). So yeah, this thing is great and kind of exciting in a way that gaming hasn't been since maybe the Wii. Your ducks are all in a row Nintendo, now it's time to slay.

5. SNES

I'll be honest upfront. Never owned one of these bad boys. In fact, as far as retro-gaming goes, I kinda suck. Not only have I not played as many retro classics as I should, I'm just generally not a good admirer of games that proceed PS2 or those classic PS1 JRPGs. And that's why this list has skewed so much toward the 6th generation and beyond. BUT I'm not fool enough to not be able to see just how many knock-out state-of-the-art masterpieces exist on this single, pixelated-sprite rendering bastion of a console. Like seriously, I always knew that this was kind of the advent of modern gaming, or represented a moment when things went from black-and-white if you will, to fully fleshed out, deep, and colorful experiences like Link to the Past and Super Metroid, but it wasn't until perusing the titles selected for the recently-released SNES Classic. Like seriously, the library on this thing is incredibly strong. Super Castlevania and Super Metroid and the Super Mario games alone make this the single greatest console for side-scrolling platformers and the beloved Metroidvania genre. Now it was only competing against the older NES and Sega's consoles basically but still, the fact that it didn't have all that much competition makes it even that much more impressive that it didn't skimp on games at all. It's also got fighting and racing in spades (Street Fighter II, F-Zero and Super Mario Kart) for multiplayer sessions and as if that wasn't enough, it also sports a handful of the greatest JRPGs of all time. Indeed, if not for the games Square Soft released for this console, the JRPG may not have taken off in the way it did by the time FFVII came out. Behold games including Final Fantasy 4, 5, 6, Chrono Trigger, and Secret of Mana (a multiplayer JRPG???) just to name the ones that must absolutely be mentioned,  all of which are paragons of JRPG excellence. They set a very high precedent for the genre going forward and all of their statuses have been securely enshrined in the halls of fantasy greatness.

Indeed, these 5 games alone force my hand in terms of including this console, and that means a lot for someone who is a bit of plebeian when it comes to the 16-bit era. It would be an obvious inclusion if I ever actually owned it, but even having missed out on it originally, I have the utmost respect for it and its games. So many of these games over the decades have gotten ported and re-released and remastered (esp on PS1 and Gameboy Advance) to the point where most gamers have encountered at least some of these games to some extent even if they got into gaming way after this generation. They are quite simply the gold-standard in gaming, and truly some of the most "classic" titles of all time, providing a truly inspiring precedent for what games can be. Sega Genesis/Master Drive had fantastic Sonic and Phantasy Star games, but Mario, Metroid, Castlevania, Zelda and the golden age Final Fantasy games are staggering individually and also when lined up next to each other, all of them offering perfectly archetypal iterations of their respective genres, containing within their cartridge's circuit-boards the sheer essence of gaming itself~ Shout-out/Runner-ups:

-Gamecube- again, never owned one but this thing is unstoppable (and I owned many essentials once I got a Wii), but with Mario Sunshine, Luigi's Mansion, Melee, Windwaker, Metroid Prime, Metal Gear Solid: Twin Snakes, Killer7 and other oddities, this is nearly tied with my other favorite Nintendo library, the Wii, which might only have a slight edge because the Wii has better JRPGs (even though it's only really 3 or so JRPGs, but still they're fantastic while the Gamecube is lacking any truly excellent JRPGs amongs its modest smattering of titles, including Tales of Symphonia, Evolution Worls and Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles). Also, the lunchbox design and portability is really sweet. Solid controller also, with the Wavebird being my second favorite controller of all time after the Dual-Shock 2 (and then the Wii remote probably).

-PS1- My first couple years of owning a PS2 I was spending the bulk of my time playing Final Fantasy 7, 8, 9 and Tactics, and those along with several other of the dankest JRPGs of all time, make this the greatest console for JRPGs of all time imo (especially because most of the best SNES JRPGs save for Secret of Mana were ported decently to the PS1 (Chrono Trigger gets Toriyama-animated cut scenes!). And so while that genre is really the only draw for me to the PS1, there's obviously a wealth of other fantastic titles on it, and bless the PS2 for allowing me to play all of them).

-PS4- It feels stupider to put this than it did the Switch and the Switch is way newer, but still, I couldn't actually put this in the top 5 because most of the games that I really love on it are either also on Xbox One, PS3 or PC, so almost nothing on it feels truly exclusive but I still wanted to mention it. Like really, two of my favorite JRPGs of all time-- Persona 5 and Nier Automata-- came out for this thing this year but both are also available on PS3 and PC respectively. So yeah, I love this thing and use it literally all the time, and in the past year or so it seems to finally be coming into its own in terms of offering a unique experience that is remotely different than Xbox One, but these days the exclusive title is becoming more and more rare with only certain Final Fantasy games (the excellent Zodiac Age and decent Type-0 (and the twee World of..)) and like Bloodborne and Gravity Falls being true exclusives. But more are surely to come with Kingdom Hearts 3 and FF7R eventually coming out at long last sometime in the next few years (maybe??). Ni No Kuni 2 and Dissidia next January will also be exclusive. But yeah, beyond the mostly non-exclusive library, this thing has a good controller, good interface, good functionality and is just generally a good/ideal system. We did it, go team! -Wii U- Only mentioning this because I kind of ripped on this earlier and want to clarify: I have a soft spot for the Wii U, and appreciate that it kind of prophesizes what Nintendo would do with the Switch what with the way you could play games on the pad. It’s a really neat and functional idea hindered only by the fact that you can’t leave the room (minor for me since I basically never need to play a handheld anywhere except my house). I’d say this thing had two big problems though: One, it felt way more like an expansion or attachment for the Wii than a brand new console. And second and more importantly, they were not able to correct the issue the Wii had with third-party and it got even worse on this thing. The console has a handful of fantastic flagship games, with a couple of promising new franchises popping up (like Splatoon or the newly Nintendo-loyal Bayonetta) but even these first-party games lack the strength to sustain the entire console on their own. Really, this thing ends up being a bit of a bust unless your a Smash fanatic, or really love the HD Zelda releases (and eventually BotW) or if you are way into Xenoblade Chronicles X. And that’s how I am, so that’s literally 5 games. In like 5 years... I mean yeah there’s some solid old-school platformers, and Mario Kart and Splatoon but it just doesn’t quite come together for me. I figure it might grow on me in the same way the Wii did, but to a lesser extent because of the way the Switch feels like a superior version of it (or else an ideal hybrid of the Wii and Wii U) Whew, that was longer than I thought it'd be. But I love thinking about consoles! They're like the album of gaming or something. And the games on them are the songs? Idk that's a weird metaphor, but anyway, coming tomorrow: The Awkward 7th Generation and Mistwalker games~

[ecotone99]

[MF]It's all fun and games

The thing I hate worst about hunting demons is the hours. It sure as hell ain’t nine to five. I’m not saying it’s always at midnight, but it is very rarely earlier. Definitely nothing good happens after midnight.

I've been waiting on this one for a few days. The Strauss family had given me the key to their house and rushed out in obvious relief on Tuesday. As I had requested, they had tidied up but not moved too many things. I had come in with my gear and set up in the garage. A military style cot, dried food, two changes of clothes, some basic toiletries, and my box.

Yeah my box.

It’s important.

Years ago, I carved my box from an oak beam salvaged from a burnt down church. I had salvaged several things from that old place after it burned. I had a lot more of the wood, of course. The firemen had let me in as soon as they had completely extinguished the flames. Some of the metal objects had been quite warm but I figured I owed the congregation my best efforts. They deserved it. I was still pawing through the wreckage when about fifty parishioners showed up with tools and trucks. The had food and drinks with them. Two of the men had gently but firmly removed me from the wreckage and sat me down on a tailgate with a cup of coffee and the best damn egg sandwich I had ever eaten.

That was the night my eyes had been opened and my calling made perfectly clear. The night a demon burned down my fucking church. Right before I killed the little hellspawn.

These days I don’t get surprised. Some of the tactics vary with the demons but mine was pretty set in stone. As one of my childhood heroes, Bruce Lee puts it, “I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times.” My kick is my box.

I realize it seems a little weird as a weapon. It’s not so much the weapon exactly as a trap and a coffin. The box is very important and the nature of its making is important and hugely complicated. But in the end it makes the work so much easier. You can do this job without one, I had killed my first demon without one, but the box makes it possible to do so without burning down the structure you currently occupy. Bonus.

I won’t bore you with all the Symbols carved into the box. They are important certainly but the importance is directly related to me. If you made a box it would be very similar to mine in many ways. I could use yours and you could use mine. Assuming, of course that you are also a thaumaturge blessed by heaven. A thaumaturge is what they used to call a wonder worker or miracle worker.

I’m not making this shit up. Lots of Catholic saints, godmen in India and various other chosen people around the globe have done this throughout history. I can do it but I have no freaking idea how it works. I am satisfied knowing that it does, and I can help people with it.

Now sitting in the Strauss’ garage over the past few days I have really caught up on my reading. Mostly on my phone but also on my tablet, I devour series and single novels voraciously. If I could just make a living doing this I would be set. I eat a healthy, if a Spartan diet. I have all day to read, exercise and nap. Most nights are quiet and when they aren’t I have the grim satisfaction of knocking another invader off the wall between us and hell.

Have you ever looked at your watch, then someone asks you what time it is and you have to look again to answer them? That is the feeling I get when some demon shenanigans are about to begin. Like I did something stupid and I will likely do it again. I guess because the evil of the demon has a range and the perimeter feels more like exposed stupidity than actual evil. Chagrin maybe, I don’t know.

I set down my tablet when I get that feeling. I flex my feet in my boots to make sure the are tightly fastened. Standing slowly, I check the function of my joints and do a quick little stretch. I don’t want to pull a muscle for crying out loud. Some of these whoresons can get kind of rough. I snagg the box from where it lays on my pack. Finally, I roll my neck out one more time and walk to the door into the house and open it.

As I step through I catch a whiff. Butt funk and honey, Eu d’ Demon, my least favorite smell. The Strausses had told me that the demon seemed to begin in the kitchen and then move through the living room on its way upstairs to the kids rooms. I quickly decide to meet it in the living room instead of the kitchen. Too much sharp shit and glass in there.

Moving quickly I set the box down on the spot I picked out when I first arrived. The lid opens silently and I get a whiff of the oil that I rub into the wood after each use. It’s a pleasant and wholesome smell that covers up the demon stink very well.

I move silently and crouch behind the couch. I control my breathing and begin focusing on one of the small thaumaturgical miracles I can do. It essentially freezes any hellspawn in place for a few vital moments. I’m not one hundred percent sure why this is but it has something to do with how our brain functions versus a demons. Our amygdala is the part of the brain that processes our emotional reactions. Our amygdala loves a surprise. We like scary movies, surprise birthday parties and unexpected events. Even those people who say they hate them enjoy them. Well at least their amygdala has a positive reaction, even if the secondary reactions are not good.

I can sense the demon enter the room. The malevolence is palpable. An oppressive wrongness that kicks the senses into fight or flight. It’s time to make my move. My thaumaturgy is ready and I jump up from behind the couch and scream,

“Peek-a-boo!”

The reaction is instantaneous. The ugly blue/green thing with a clown’s face goes rigid, stiff as a board. I dash in and grab it with both hands and throw it as hard as I can towards the box. I hear the satisfying clunk of it closing, signifying the thaumaturge has taken affect.

I have never had the phobia but I do understand why people fear clowns. Something that closely resembles a human face but is slightly wrong in its features and movement makes us horrified. Deep down we know that the smile is wrong and hiding something. Every demon I have ever killed had a clown’s face. Horrifying.

I'm already fixing in my mind the next piece of thaumaturgy and I spin around putting my back to the demon and placing my hands over my eyes. I began to count aloud.

“1 Mississippi, 2 Mississippi, 3 Mississippi, 4 Mississippi, …”

When I get to ten I spin around and speak to the closed box.

“Ready or not, here I come.”

The box sits there, the lid is closed. I walk to the box and lift it onto the coffee table. I sit down on the couch and stare at the box for a moment and then reach out with my fist. I tap on the lid, the old rhythm. Tap tap tatap tap, Shave and a Haircut...a short silence. Then from inside the box comes the answering taps. Tap tap, Two bits. Got the bastard.

Now comes the coup de grace. I focus nearly all my attention on my left hand. I make it a weapon of the light and good in this world. I focus the wrath of God in my hand so that it begins to glow. I hold that power ready.

My right hand reaches for the little handle on the side of my box. It is the crank for a music box. As I begin to turn, the tinny sound of the music box floats in the room. I mouth the words to the song as I slowly crank the handle:

“Round and round the mulberry bush...The monkey chased the weasel..”

I think of all the little children in the world who go to sleep at night with a tiny touch of fear. They don’t know if they are the monkey or the weasel. Do they pursue their goals like their monkey. Scampering and trying to catch the things and people in their life that make them happy. Or do they scamper along in terror and panic? Stressed by the world and it’s pressure and always fearful of failure.

“The monkey thought twas all in fun..”

I know. I know they are both. I can’t save them from their own thoughts and choices, but I can give them one less thing to fear.

“Pop!...”

The lid pops open and the demon springs up. It is hideous and ridiculous all at the same time. It slobbers and snots through its horrid clown face. It’s blue hair bounced in ridiculous shoots at the sides of its head. The hands, in fat white gloves, reached toward me.

I reach out my left hand and touch the sickly soft fabric of its costume.

“You’re it, motherfucker.” I say in a low growl.

With the combination of the touch and those magic words, the clown screams. It lays its head back and howls. The hands come up straight in the sky and the entire clown body slumps all at once back into the box. One more scream comes from the box but it trails off. Like the old Roadrunner cartoons when something fell off a cliff. The scream fades and dies. I look in the box just to be sure. It smells like unwashed ass and honey but otherwise it is empty.

My right hand is still on the crank handle, I play the last notes.

“...goes the weasel.”

More stories, and some good reading and podcasts at https://www.ityatale.com/stories

submitted by /u/RevMajor [link] [comments] via Blogger https://ift.tt/2KFQOye

[s-coleman]

Planning Ensemble Character Development and Purpose Over a Series

Pretty wordy title for someone making their first real planning process post, but it summarises my point. Also, hi. I meant to be posting more about my processes sooner, but when I have an idea I tend to use it first and foremost, then forget to write about it afterwards. A lot of the time it seems egotistical to go on about how I write, but using the process I’m posting about today was so useful I thought I’d put it out there. Even if it’s a lot wordier than I’d intended.

So here’s the situation. Multiple main characters. Intended for one story originally, but wouldn’t you know there was a lot more to say after novel one had been planned and begun. So now there are five stories intended. 

This is great in many ways. It means I don’t have to rush to get everything out in book one (though it’s still important to me that the book can stand alone on its own merits independent of the rest). One major downside is the possibility of stagnation, either with plot or - as is the point of this post - with characters. In a single novel we’re more likely to see a fairly unchanging character as just consistent. Over the course of five books, it starts to be a case of ‘for god’s sake Jimmy, you’re so boring. The entire world has been destroyed and you’re still doing the same crap as you were at the start!’ Not to mention as the plot affects your characters it should also affect the way those characters relate to one another. They will have experiences that will form or shake them and their relationships with other people.

I found that as I continue to plot out the books I wanted a clear, quick and simple reference for how those characters were changing and what their role becomes at each point. Of course this meant I had to make said reference. I thought of those word games where you change one word to another entirely by changing one letter at a time to make a new word. And that is the aim with my characters in this plan. One change at a time, one novel at a time.

Now, in my series there are location changes for each book due to plot stuff. This will help to avoid stagnation as characters will be forced to react to new settings, but it isn’t necessary. Downsides can include diluting the theme or tone of your series, or losing readers who were particularly keen on only one of your chosen settings. Still, it’s what I’m doing so my first step was to work out the order of my settings/novels. I numbered them 1 to 5. It’s highly likely you’ll already know the order of your novels/plots/settings, but I’m not that organised. Until now! 

So then I’ve got something like that (only point one is actually representative of my novel. No spoilers here!) I’ve had these all noted down for a while in my notepad (I use pencil and paper for planning), but only now have I put them into order. If I’m honest, I had to wiggle them around a bit once I started planning my characters when I realised their development hinged on a slightly different order of events. No shame in changing things as you work out other things!

Now I’ve got my 6 main characters. You may have more, you may have less. The important thing is figuring out what they’re doing in each story and how/why that changes.

So let’s invent a character (to avoid giving away the intentions for my actual characters). Let’s call him Geoffrey. For whatever reason, he gets picked for the development rollercoaster first. Maybe he’s my favourite in the ensemble of characters that I pretend to love equally. 

I number one to five under his name, leaving a space between each row. One number for each novel/story. Now, often point one is easy. We all generally get an idea of where our character is at the start and who they are and why we’re talking about them. If you don’t have that, now’s as good a time as any to think about it. Let’s say my Geoffrey has a destiny. Let’s make it one of those novels. And let’s say he’s going to be the dominant viewpoint, the trigger for the events that begin in book one.

Gosh. Look at that, we have a hero on our hands. Now, your character will definitely be more complicated than this in your book. This isn’t even a proper summary of who they are. It’s a reference to remind you of their function in that book. You can then go on and do this for all your characters to get a good view of how they fit niches in the group’s needs and to give yourself ideas for how they might interact.

As I said, I do this on paper but for the purposes of drawing it out here I made a little table on the old word processor...

You already know as the author who they are and what they’re up to in detail. Now’s the time to look at what that does. For example, we’ve got Perry there who is a ‘broken victim’ and ‘obstructor’. This plan/reference doesn’t need full details of what happened to him. As the author, I already know. What’s important is that in this beginning, he is very much in a victim role. He’s scared and hurt and this leads to him obstructing the steps the others are taking towards a very violent and scary end, either directly or indirectly. Again, the characters are much more than this. This is just your reminder of where they start and where they need to go. 

Speaking of which, you’ll see Geoffrey has an end in sight for the last book. I mean, Geoffrey personally might not know this is his goal (maybe he does, maybe he’s objective-focused and amoral) but it’s important that we know where he’s headed if we set out to write five books about the magnificent bastard. Geoffrey is going to become a tyrannical dictator in book five. But this can’t happen all at once! 

Here’s a messy and slightly obfuscated snippet of a character in my own novel character arc plan from my notebook:

Smudges to avoid spoilers. In book one, they are a Manipulator. This isn’t terribly obvious though I’m still in two minds over how subtle to make it. However, my setting in book two is no good for them. It complicates matters for them, leaves them out of their element. Book three requires a certain level of backstabbing and knowing what I know of this character, they’re the obvious choice. So I had points 1, 2 and 3 filled out based simply on this character’s reaction to the setting and plot of novels 1, 2 and 3, which we laid out simply at the very start. I know why they’re there. And I already know how I want things to end for them. A redemption of sorts. So book 5 sees them become a martyr to save those that they have hurt so far.

If we were to blend this with the made up characters above it would quickly become obvious that this character could be at odds with Geoffrey by the end. That their arcs could in fact be the inverse of each other, this character rising to heroism while Geoffrey falls to villainy. Perhaps it would even be Geoffrey who killed this character. Perhaps that would stop him. Perhaps it wouldn’t. But these are then themes to keep in mind throughout the series, to foreshadow early on with how these characters interact, disagreements they might have, views that might clash, warnings that go unheeded. 

You don’t need to do one character at a time. Quite often, putting a character in one role makes you ask questions. One of my more abrasive characters finds love over the course of the series with one of the others. I want them settled in this by the end, making decisions inspired by their feelings for this other character. So their final bulletpoint is ‘lover’. However, there are issues here. I’ll use made-up Perry and Shane to demonstrate:

Imagine the setting returns the characters to Shane’s home in book 4. Through various social developments it has become clear to Perry and Shane that they’re in love or whatever and Perry is down with this in book 4. Shane, however, is not. My setting and plot tell me he would be in an obstructing role and while that could work with a romance too, I don’t want it to. I want Shane being a pain in the butt and distracted by the plot and generally not on the same page as Perry romantically-speaking. Shane has growing to do, growing that will be catalysed by what happens in book 4.

Which brings us to those gaps between the numbered rows. As you saw in my handwritten version above, there are things written between each (and after the end). Once you have two numbered bulletpoints planned, make a note between the two to indicate what caused the change. In my example, the shift to ‘traitor’ in book 3 occurs directly because of book 2, in which the character felt disconnected from the every day. Book 2 traumatises them in a way that galvanises them to push on, to make things happen the way they want them to. As a result I wrote ‘anxious to move plans along’, which is why they turn traitor in book 3, willing to go to desperate measures to make things work. In the Perry and Shane example above, it would likely be Perry’s reaction to Shane’s behaviour in book 4 that causes the shift in their relationship and wakes Shane up to his own feelings in book 5.

Different role types I used in my plan include:

manipulator (a character with their own agenda who seeks to manage the actions of the others to fit with that agenda)

tool (no not like that, I mean like a character who is struggling to find their own autonomy and is acting mostly in a supportive function for one or more other characters),

victim (which sounds kind of rough but it’s to represent the fact that their trauma is still the dominant drive for their actions at that point),

protector (could be due to who they are or perhaps an event has occurred that is making them feel more protective of their friends/family/one other character than before)

threat (could be a flat-out villain, could just be a hero in over their head, either way their actions are going to endanger others)

problem-solver (a character who has the skills to pay the bills in some manner, who’s able to sort out issues the other characters might not)

obstructor (for whatever reason, this character is not aligned with the goals of the rest for the majority of the story and is somehow making things more difficult as a result)

lover (they’re being led by their feelings for another character, which could be a good or bad influence)

activist (they’ve found their own cause separate from the main thrust of the action and it’s diverting their attention)

Now obviously some of these could overlap, and there are so many more you could come up with. You’ll probably want to write more than one word, I definitely do when I’m explaining the shift between books. Also note that when I say ‘shift between books’ I don’t mean that the character changes off-page between the end of one book and the start of the next. It’s gradual, sometimes beginning towards the end of the last book or from the start of the new book, depending on what happened. 

At the end, you should have a page of characters with a short list of bulletpoints beneath that map their character growth. I found while doing this I ended up asking myself all sorts of questions about how they could get to one point from the last. Or ‘if they’re doing that, someone’s bound to investigate’, which would lead me to cast another character in that investigative role. It even helped plan out the evolution of a romantic arc by realising at what points a character might be receptive to such emotions and what impact it could have on their actions towards another character. 

I hope this has been helpful, as it’s my first post - I think, I haven’t gone back through my blog to check - on the topic. If you like it, let me know or reblog. If you use it and you’re happy sharing the results, I’d love to see!

[haipurves116404-blog]

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